A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts

Thursday, December 29, 2016

A Belated Appreciation of Irfan Shahid, 1926-2016

Irfan Shahid
I  have learned, rather belatedly, of the passing of Prof. Irfan Shahid, Professor at Georgetown, former Associate Fellow of Dumbarton Oaks, and Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, who passed away on November 9 at the age of 90.

Professor Shahid was one of the readers of my doctoral dissertation.Though he was the definitive historian of Byzantine-Arab relations down to the Islamic conquests, he didn't actually teach history at Georgetown, where he was the Oman Professor of Arabic and Islamic Literature, teaching the Qur'an, Classical Arabic Literature, and the like in the Arabic department. I really only got to know him from his eager involvement in my doctoral committee.

Born as Irfan Kawar in Nazareth in 1926 to a Palestinian Greek Orthodox family, he read Classics at Oxford and then took his Ph.D. at Princeton in Arabic and Islamic studies. I never did know why he changed his name from Kawar to Shahid.

Although he was a prominent enough figure at Georgetown, I suspect he was really far more at home at Dumbarton Oaks, the Harvard-owned Byzantine studies library in Washington, where he did most of his life's work on Byzantium and the Arabs. He discussed his time there in an interview at Dumbarton Oaks in 2008. His publications included Rome and the Arabs: A Prolegomenon to the Study of Byzantium and the Arabs; Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century; and Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, and numerous articles. I am uncertain if his final volume, on the seventh century and the Arab Conquests, might have been far enough along to someday appear. Unfortunately, all his volumes are priced beyond my or most people's reach.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Victorian Converts to Islam

Though Al-Jazeera moved this story some months ago, I hadn't seen it before: "The Victorian Muslims of Britain,"  about British aristocratic types converting to Islam. (To quibble, some of these conversions were more Edwardian than Victorian. Among the examples is (Muhammad) Marmaduke Pickthall, whose translation of the Qur'an still circulates.

It also reminded me of the discovery of a letter from Winston Churchill's future sister-in-law expressing concern that Churchill might convert.
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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Now that Dabiq Has Fallen, Will ISIS Change the Name of its Magazine?

What with the launching of the campaign against Mosul and the US preoccupation with the election, many may have overlooked the loss by ISIS of a tiny town in northern Syria with only a few thousand inhabitants. But it did get some attention, because the town was Dabiq.

It looks as if the end times may be postponed for a while. You may recall that two years ago I did a post discussing the role pf Dabiq in Islamic apocalyptic thought, and quoted at length a hadith attributed to the Prophet to the effect that in the last days a great final battle between the Muslims and "the Romans" (that is, the Byzantines), which would lead to a Muslim victory the fall of Constantinople and the onset of the last days.

Yes, Islam conquered Constantinople back in 1453, but in the centuries of struggle preceding that, the boundary between Byzantium and Islam frequently ran roughly along the present Turkish border; as, later, did the boundary between the Ottomans and Mamluk Syria. Over the centuries two battles were fought at Marj Dabiq (the Meadow of Dabiq) near the town: one in 717 AD between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, and the other in 1516 in which the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks and opened their conquest of Syria and Egypt. Dabiq was in the sort of location where battles have occurred several times. rather like the hill and pass at Megiddo in Palestine has been the scene of battles from ancient times to World War I. Just as the biblical Book of Revelation places the final battle at Armageddon (Greek for har-Megiddo), so some Islamic traditions place a similar battle at Dabiq.

And of course, ISIS named its English-language magazine Dabiq.

Unlike Aleppo or Mosul, the loss of Dabiq by ISIS to the Sultan Murad militia (a Syrian Turkmen militia backed by Turkey) has little effect on the military situation, but it clearly undercuts ISIS' claim to be bringing the apocalypse.

For more on the subject, ISIS expert at Brookings Will McCants has a good piece at Jihadica, "Apocalypse Delayed,"  (also available from the Brookings website).

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Happy New Year to Muslims and Jews Both: in a Rare Year Where AH 1 Muharram 1438 and AM 1 Tishrei 5777 Coincide

Shana Tova to Jewish readers on this first day of Rosh Hashonah,  which began at sundown. But also Happy New Year to Muslim readers in an extremely rare occasion when Jewish New Year coincides with Ra's al-Sana al-Hijriyya, the Muslim New Year. (And of course,  Rosh Hashonah and Ra's al-Sana are cognate, and both mean "Head of the Year.")  But the calendars are quite different, with Muslim lunar dates moving around through the solar year, and this kind of coincidence is purely that. But Happy New Year whether you're welcoming in 1438 or 5777.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Bassem Youssef on Trusting Your Muslim Neighbors

The brilliant Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef has been banned from Egyptian TV,  but apparently we're going to see more of him over here, starting with this:

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The #1in5Muslims Internet Meme: Once Again, the Best Response to Ignorance is Ridicule

Amid all the deeply depressing news: a ray of humor;

The Sun, Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid that until fairly recently was best known for its "Page 3 Girls," bare-breasted models who must have been a major support of Britain's silicon industry based on their improbably ample attributes, is not generally known for its news quality, which at times makes The Daily Mail look reliable. (Page 3 girls have apparently put tops on after years of feminist protest.) In the present Islamophobic hysteria gripping all US Republican candidates and some Europeans, it featured this front page splash:
While still managing to keep its audience by getting female breasts on the front page (though covered with a bikini), it also sensationalized and apparently misstated a poll result.

Longtime readers may recall that back in 2012, Newsweek ran a cover story on "Muslim Rage" that provoked a hilarious response on Twitter as I duly reported then.

Well the hashtag #1in5Muslims is replicating that with posters posting made-up "factoids" thst are often funny. (Warning: there are hostile posts under the hashtag, too.) A selection:


Nor were the Page 3 Girls forgotten:

And finally at least for now:
That's Murdoch of course. I  think he should go back to Page 3 Girls. Bare boobs may be sexist but don't provoke hate crimes and racism.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

‘Eid al-‘Adha Greetings

Greetings to my Muslim readers for ‘Eid al-‘Adha. ‘Eid Mubarak!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Live-Streaming the Hajj ...

As previously noted, all the Abrahamic religions have a busy week. The Meccan hajj began today and the ‘Eid comes later this week; Yom Kippur starts at sundown, and Pope Francis just landed here in Washington to begin his US tour.

As always, Meccan TV is live-streaming the hajj via YouTube. These will probably not work once the hajj ends, but for now here are two channels:

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

When Calendars Collide

I thought I'd note an interesting fact about next week. At sunset on Tuesday, September 22, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, will begin. Just 24 hours later, at sundown September 23, the Muslim ‘Eid al-‘Adha begins, the Feast of Sacrifice culminating the Meccan Hajj.. Though both the Jewish and Muslim calendars are basically lunar, the Hebrew calendar periodically adds an intercalary (extra-calendrical) month to bring the lunar calendar closer to the solar, while the Islamic calendar expressly forbids this and is purely lunar. So this near juxtaposition of two of their major holy days is purely a coincidence, but I suspect security services will be on alert in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and around the world.

There are no major Christian feasts next week, but it happens that just a few hours before Yom Kippur begins in the Eastern United States, at 4 pm Eastern Daylight Time next Tuesday, Pope Francis will land in Washington for his first visit to the US, visiting DC, New York, and Philadelphia. It will be a busy week for all the Abrahamic faiths.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Ramadan Karim

Ramadan will begin at sundown tonight and the fast will begin at dawn tomorrow in the US and most Middle Eastern countries that follow the Saudi determination. Ramadan Mubarak wa Ramadan Karim to my Muslim readers.

Friday, January 2, 2015

Mawlid al-Nabi Greetings

Greeting to Muslim readers on the occasion of the Prophet's Birthday, Mawlid al-Nabi,which began at sundown.

Monday, November 24, 2014

What May Be the Oldest-Known (Recently C-14 Dated) Portion of the Qur'an is Now Online

The opening page
Both the Early Islamic History field and elements in the Muslim world have recently been abuzz over the dating of what may be the earliest known fragment of the Qur'an. If the dating holds up it will be of enormous importance, and could undermine those Western revisionist historians who question much of the traditional narrative of the Islamic tradition and the dating of the Qur'an.  As the official press release from the University of Tübingen puts it:
A Koran fragment from the University of Tübingen Library has been dated to the 7th century - the earliest phase of Islam - making it at least a century older than previously thought. Expert analysis of three samples of the manuscript parchment concluded that it was more than 95 percent likely to have originated in the period 649-675 AD - 20 to 40 years after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. Such scientific dating of early Koran manuscripts is rare.
The Tübingen fragment was tested by the Coranica project, a collaboration between the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Paris and the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Academy of the Sciences and Humanities, sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and France’s Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). The project investigates the Koran in the context of its historical background using documents such as manuscripts and information derived from archaeological excavations.
A radiocarbon date of 649-675 AD would put the fragment in the Rashidun or early Umayyad period.  The report is justly getting press (here for example), and at least one (presumably Shi‘ite-leaning) website has sought to suggest it might be linked personally to Imam ‘Ali.

Previously the oldest surviving texts of the Qur'an were considered to be the so-called Sana‘a' texts dated to 645-690 AD, and a Samarkand manuscript attributed to the reign of ‘Uthman (Caliph AD 644-656) but not carbon dated. the calligraphy in both cases suggests a later date.

This suggests one caution not raised in the initial reports of this case. I'm not trying to dampen the enthusiasm here as I do consider this an extraordinary discovery (the text has long been known: the news is the radiocarbon date), but popular accounts citing radiocarbon dates are often misleading (the same is true of DNA evidence, but that's a rant for another time), since most reporters in the history/archaeology field have only a superficial understanding of the science.

Carbon-14, the basis of radiocarbon dating, stops accumulating when the organic material in which it is found dies. Wood from an ancient house will not tell you when the house was actually built; it will tell you when the trees from which the wood came were chopped down. Similarly, the parchment on which this Qur'an was written will not date to the moment of writing, but to the death of the sheep or other animal whose skin was made into parchment. It's not unreasonable to assume that a venerated work like the Qur'an would be written on relatively fresh parchment, but it's still only an assumption.

Neither the Tübingen press release nor the secondary accounts comment on whether the calligraphy is consistent with such an early date, though I suspect that the shortage of other early, carbon-dated manuscripts makes that hard to verify. The script is early Kufic, without vowel points and in many cases with letters unconnected; I'm not trained in such early calligraphy or epigraphy but it's very early. Despite my words of caution  above, this is an exciting carbon date. (Not a new discovery, as the MS has been known but just undated.)

The Tübingen Coranica Project has a website here.

The surviving portions contain text from Suras 17:37 to 3657. Because the MS has been part of the collection but not previously dated, a digital version is online. You can find the index page here;  each link takes you to the first page off several; if you don't read German,  click on "Vollansicht" (full view) to see the section.

I've actually had to try to read unpointed Kufic MSS. many years ago, but unless you do this everyday I'd recommend having a modern Qur'an with vowel points in hand.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Best Wishes for Both Yom Kippur and ‘Id al-‘Adha

It is certainly unusual for the major religious observances of both Islam and Judaism to coincide, but this year Yom Kippur and the Muslim Feast of Sacrifice do just that.

‘Id Mubarak to my Muslim readers and an easy fast to my Jewish readers.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Live-Streaming from the Hajj

The hajj is under way. Live streaming (sorry there's a commercial before it starts) from Mecca: 

Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

You can see some of the expansion work on the Mosque itself, part of huge and at times controversial development projects Mecca has been undergoing.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

A Glimmer of Good News: Cairo Synagogue Hosts Ramadan Iftar

So much is depressing right now, here's something that isn't: Cairo's last synagogue has hosted  a Ramadan Iftar meal sponsored by the Egyptian Alliance for Minorities. This photo alone speaks volumes:
Gestures will not end war and intolerance, but they do show hope. It takes a long time for water to erode a Grand Canyon, but here is a promising drop.

Video below: among the speakers are Magda Haroun, head of Cairo's tiny Jewish community, a member of the Amazigh Movement in Egypt, and an Azhari sheikh from a group called Azharis for a Civil Society.  (The English report quotes Haroun as saying "We are all Egyptians," which she does, but note that in her Arabic clip she also mentions Shi‘ites and Baha'is along with other minorities.

The Fanus Lanterns of Ramadan: Folklore and Tradition

Cairo Fawanis Sellers, Early 20th Century
The rapid descent of the region into the lower circles of hell makes it easy to neglect the  social and cultural and historical mission we claim for this blog. I'm particularly remiss this year in Ramadan posts, a third of the way into the holy month.

The Fanus, (also Fanous or Fanoos, Arabic plural fawanis 
فوانيس, فانوس رمضان ), while primarily Egyptian in its origins, has spread beyond the Valley of the Nile: it is a Ramadan lantern, usually lit by a candle, modeled loosely on a mosque lamp and used to light streets, mosques, balconies and homes during Ramadan.

The word itself is clearly from Greek phanos (φανός, a torch or lantern), perhaps directly or via Coptic which has many loan words from Greek.

Modern Fawanis
Inexpensive and cheaply-made fawanis are often made from scrap metal, and as a 2011 AP story noted, the traditional trade is dying in Egypt, replaced by an influx of Chinese copies:
As a symbol, the fanoos is somewhat similar to a Christmas tree or a menorah. It is hung on balconies during Ramadan and takes the center of dinner tables when families gather to break-fast together.
The history of the fanoos in Egypt stretches back to the Fatimid Empire, which ruled large swaths of the Muslim world from Cairo starting in the 10th century. But, after nearly a century, the future of the Egyptian fanoos is under threat.

Less than a dozen fanoos makers remain in Cairo, as cheap Chinese imports and decades of government corruption have made plying their trade nearly impossible.

“Our great-grandfathers did this work, but our kids won’t,” said Rida Ashour, who stopped making the fanoos about 10 years ago.
Also see this 2009 Al-Ahram Weekly  story, "Lights of Faith."

Mention of the fanus also gives me an excellent reason to refer to my own post from Ramadan 2012: "'Wahawi ya Wahawi Eyaha': Is it an Ancient Egyptian Chant?" This is a traditional chant sung while lighting the fanus lamps at sundown during Ramadan. As my post notes, traditions says this is an Ancient Egyptian chant, and it has no clear meaning in Arabic. In Ancient Egyptian snd Coptic it may mean something like "Welcome, Moon." "Eyaha" is suggestive: iah is "moon" in Coptic, which could be relevant to Ramadan, obviously, though older traditions associate it with the Pharaoh Ahmose ("born of the Moon").(And note the knowledgeable comment on the original post.)

It's interesting that the earlier quote on Fawanis attributes the modern tradition to the early Fatimids, though of course Ancient Egyptians had lanterns,while my link on Wahawi ya Wahawi also attributes the chant to the Fatimid era, despite suggesting Ancient Egyptian origin. Regular readers may recall that many folk etymologies of the ubiquitous Egyptian term أحا (aḥa, a7a), widely considered profane though no one knows why, also attribute its etymology (for various incompatible reasons) to the Fatimids. What is it about the Fatimids that attracts so much folkloric accreditation?

Yes, of course, they founded Cairo (the walled city with its current name), but Fustat and other town were already there. Why is Egypt's only Shi‘ite dynasty credited with so much folkloric tradition?

At times I wish The Middle East Journal wasn't devoted just to the post 1945 Middle East, but it is. Why are the Fatimids so popular as a folk origin for customs ranging from religious rites to profanity  (if أحا  is even profane)?  Comments and suggestions are welcome.

But if you haven't read my 2013 post you may have no idea what Wahawi ya Wahawi Eyaha sounds like. Here it is, from a modern song, embedded in Arabic: Wahawi is accented on the first syllable Unlikely in Arabic) .Eyaha tends to sound like Eyoha.:

 

Monday, June 30, 2014

Declaring a Caliphate Doesn't Make One a Caliph

Hussein of Hijaz
So Ibrahim al-Badri, AKA Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, thinks he's Commander of the Faithful of a new Islamic Caliphate? Not so fast.There are abundant reasons to fear the murderous Baghdadi and his ISIS (or now apparently just "The Islamic State"),  but fear of the world's Muslims rallying behind a new Caliphate seems misplaced. Juan Cole made the point yesterday in his "The Debacle of the Caliphates: Why al-Baghdadi’s Grandiosity doesn’t Matter," gave the basic argument, but I'd like to elaborate on some of his points.

In 1924, two days after the Turkish Grand National Assembly abolished the Ottoman claim to the Caliphate, the Hashemite King Hussein of the Hijaz, the same Sharif Hussein who had raised the Arab revolt, proclaimed himself Caliph. He met with little enthusiasm, though his sons,  now Amir of Transjordan and King of Iraq, were no doubt polite about it.

Later that year Hussein was driven out of his Kingdom by the Saudis,nd lived out his last years in Amman.

When the Turkish claim to the Caliphate ended (and it had never been taken very seriously outside Ottoman territory, except to a limited extent among some Indian Muslims; the Ottomans were not from Quraysh or even Arab), various other leaders considered following suit. The Saudis did not: they believed (as had been the rule in the Classical era) that Caliphs must come from the tribe of Quraysh, which Hussein did but the Saudis did not.The Ottomans weren't from Quraysh either. King Fuad I of Egypt, though of Turco-Albanian ancestry, reportedly hired genealogist to find him  a suitable Qurayshi ancestor.

In 1924, the newly, at least nominally, independent Arab monarchs were not ready to recognize anyone else as a real Caliph. Scholars still argued that the Caliphate was a necessity; when Egyptian scholar ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Razzaq argued it was no longer necessary, he was rebuked by his superiors at al-Azhar.

But as Cole notes, the Caliphate as a real center of authority ended with the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in AD 1258.

But even before that, it had been weak; the later ‘Abbasid Caliphs depended on a sequence of warlords of Persian or Turkish origin, and a distinction arose between the religious authority of the Caliph and the military/political power of the "Sultan," a word which means simply "power."

From 945-1055 AD Baghdad was under the authority of the Buyids, a Persian dynasty of 12er Shi‘ites who nonetheless accepted the authority of the Sunni ‘Abbasid Caliphs. Soon after their rise to power came the Fatimid Dynasty, who called themselves a Caliphate but were Isma‘ili Shi‘ites, and controlled Egypt and North Africa and contested Syria. Though the Sunni Caliphate survived, much of the real power was in the hands of Shi‘ites. The emergence of Sunni warlords such as the Zangids in Syria, the Ayyubids in Egypt, and eventually the Seljuq Turks, restored Sunni dominance, but only occasionally could the late ‘Abbasids exert any real authority, and then usually only around Baghdad. In 1258 the last Caliph of Baghdad died and the Mongols extinguished the Caliphate.

Tombs of the ‘Abbasid Caliphs of Cairo
Though not quite. In Cairo's great southern cemetery, in the rear of the great shrine-tomb of Sayyida Nafisa, one of Cairo's patron saints, is a much smaller structure, domed, and with a number of cenotaphs. This is the tomb of the "shadow caliphs," the ‘Abbasid Caliphs of Cairo.

A few members of the ‘Abbasid family escaped the fall of Baghdad. The Mamluk Sultans in Egypt, who would eventually stop the Mongol advance in Palestine, gave refuge to a claimant who "ruled," without any real power or broad acknowledgement, outside of the Mamluk realms, and only a token recognition even there. Unlike the popular shrine of Sayyida Nafisa next door, the tomb attracts few other than students of Islamic architecture.

In all there were 18 ‘Abbasid Caliphs in Cairo (one counts twice as he was deposed and restored). At the time of the Ottoman conquest of Mamluk Egypt in 1517, the last of these, al-Mutawakkil III, was carried off to Constantinople; he later returned to Cairo where he died.

In theory, the Ottoman claim to the Caliphate was based on the idea that the title was transferred to them after their conquest of Egypt, though as early as Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror a century earlier, some Sultans flirted with claiming the title.

But the Ottomans, whatever latent claim they might assert, did not seriously emphasize the Caliphate until Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909), who sought to claim a role beyond the Ottoman dominions. During World War I, though the Sultan of that era was a figurehead of the Young Turks, he proclaimed a Jihad in hopes of provoking risings by Muslims in British India. When Turkey was declared a republic in 1923, an Ottoman relative, Abdülmecid II, remained Caliph but not Sultan until the abolition in 1924.

But again, if the ‘Abbasid Caliphs of Cairo were shadows, the Ottoman Caliphate was a phantom, only really asserted from the late 19th century.

Not everyone agrees whether a Caliph has to be from Quraysh, but he does need the consensus of the Muslim umma, needs to be a just ruler with religious knowledge (he is the khalifa or successor of the Prophet , though not to his prophethood, merely his political and religious authority), and of all the potential candidates, I rather doubt that Baghdadi will sway most believers. I suspect, like King Hussein of Hijaz, proclaiming himself Caliph will not make him one.

Have I mentioned I'm the Lost Dauphin of France?

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Ramadan Karim

Ramadan begins at sundown today. May I wish my Muslim readers a Blessed Ramadan.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Good News for Dog Lovers: Former Mufti Says "Dogs Are Not Impure"

 Via Egyptian Streets: "Dogs are not impure, says prominent Islamic scholar."

Excerpt:
Traditionally, dogs have been seen as unclean and impure, with Islamic thinkers warning Muslims to avoid contact with the loyal animals.

Despite the Prophet Muhammad’s kindness to animals, including notable stories of the Prophet caring for puppies, it has often been considered that dogs are unclean and are incompatible with those that practice Islam.

Yet, a new fatwa by Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa challenges this traditional view, stating that there is a misconception about dogs being impure and ritually unclean (najis).

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

‘Ashura AH 1435

The Shi‘ite holy day/day of mourning and fasting, ‘Ashura, the 10th of Ramadan, bean at sundown and continues tomorrow.  Many Sunnis also observe ‘Ashura, but not with the mourning rituals for Imam Husayn associated with Shi‘ism. There have already been sectarian attacks against Shi‘ite targets in Iraq. Egypt's small Shi‘ite community have announced their intention of praying tomorrow individually at the Sayyidna Hussein Mosque in Cairo, a shrine to Hussein founded during the (Shi‘ite) Fatimid Dynasty. In the past Salafis have sought to prevent the Shi‘ites from praying at the mosque.

My 2009  ‘Ashura post explained the background of the holy day.