Ibadism

This is the chapter ten (10) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the commented bibliography of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This paper discusses Ibāḍī-Omani doctrines through an examination of one particular brief creed, Ghāyat al-murād fī naẓm al-i‘tiqād, by the great Omani scholar, Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abdallāh ibn Ḥumayd al-Sālimī (1864-1914), in addition to drawing on other Ibāḍī and non-Ibāḍī works, in order to ascertain what is most essential to the Ibāḍī creed and how Ibāḍī doctrine is similar to and different from the doctrines of other Muslim schools.  Distinctive aspects discussed include Ibāḍī teaching on the divine attributes, the impossibility of seeing God in the afterlife, the divine decree and determination, deeds as an essential aspect of faith, different levels of kufr, and the rules for affiliation (walāya) and dissociation (barā’a).

Available Here:

https://ibadistudies.com/2017/06/26/an-ibadi-bookstore-in-tunis-%D9%85%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D8%A5%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B6%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%86%D8%B3/

Abstract:

A research blog article on the history of an Ibadi-owned bookstore in the medina of Tunis, founded in the early-20th century by Muḥammad al-Thamīnī (d.1970).

مقال في بحث حول تاريخ مكتبة صاحبها إباضي. أسّسها محمد الثميني (ت ١٩٧٠)  ومقرّها في المدينة العتيقة في تونس

This short article uses the example of the medieval Ibadi prosopographical work known as the "Siyar al-Wisyānī" to demonstrate the utility of network mapping to understand the history of a religious community. It also shows how network analysis of prospographies (or communal biographies) can complement alternative approaches to texts in the tradition of 'New Philology' that looks beyond scholarly editions to a much more complicated --and much more interesting--intellectual history of medieval Islamic texts.

Ibāḍī narratives on the emergence of the Muḥakkima have been shaped to reflect a concern with Ibāḍī origins.  Ibāḍī renditions of this story couch their arguments for the correctness of the Muḥakkima’s stance using two main strategies – outright verbal disputes between Ibn ‘Abbās and/or ‘Alī and the Muḥakkima using the literary device of a formal debate (munāẓara); and hagiographical depictions of figures associated with or appropriated for the early Muḥakkima.  This paper will focus on the second method (i.e. the portrayal of especially sanctified persons), focusing specifically on Ibāḍī characterizations of important early personages such as ‘Ammār b. Yāsir, ‘Abdullāh b. Wahb al-Rāsibī and Ḥurqūṣ b. Zuhayr in four pivotal Ibāḍī texts: al-Qalhātī’s 6th/12th century al-Kashf wa al-Bayān; al-Izkawī’s late-11th to early-12th/late 17th to early-18th century Kashf al-Ghumma; al-Barrādī’s 8th/14th century Kitāb al-Jawāhir; and al-Shammākhī’s 10th/16th century Kitāb al-Siyar (all of which are thought to preserve earlier material).  Additionally, abbreviated references to these figures exist in several earlier Omani sources.  Ibāḍī narratives about the Muḥakkima portray these three figures as exceptionally pious ascetics and martyrs, and this image, along with the ways that their actions at Ṣiffīn and Nahrawān are made to fulfill Prophetic ḥadīth (in the cases of ‘Ammār and Ḥurqūṣ), effectively makes the lives of these pious individuals into an “argument” in favor of the Ibāḍī viewpoint.  This concern with pious originating figures reflects the Ibāḍī propensity to provide what Wilkinson has called “teacher lines” (lists of important personages who transmitted the Ibāḍī madhhab) as an integral aspect of authenticating the Ibāḍī view.  Thus, the inclusion of hagiographical descriptions of figures like Ibn Yāsir, Ibn Zuhayr and Ibn Wahb in Ibāḍī narratives about the Muḥakkima must be understood with regard to how Ibāḍīs have long viewed their group as encompassing not only a collection of particular arguments, doctrines and practices, but also the accumulation of personalities whose piety and renown authenticated those doctrines and practices.

Le qṣar est un type d’implantation humaine au Sahara, semi-sédentaire voire sédentaire, bâti le plus souvent en hauteur sur un promontoire rocheux et à proximité d’un wādī. La morphologie du terrain sur lequel il est construit et son environnement immédiat (palmeraie, erg, dépression ou plateau rocheux) déterminent les matériaux de constructions employés, sa forme générale et la distribution interne de ses espaces (radioconcentrique ou en damier). Le qṣar présente un système de fortification composé d’un mur d’enceinte ponctué de tours et percé de portes. Il est composé d’une Grande Mosquée d’ordinaire au centre de l’agglomération, généralement d’une qaṣba comme centre du pouvoir, d’un habitat à patio central et parfois troglodytique, d’une place du marché habituellement en périphérie démontrant le rôle de relais que joue le qṣar sur les routes du commerce transsaharien, et enfin d’un découpage par quartiers et un réseau de circulation traduisant une hiérarchisation sociale au sein de l’agglomération.
Certains qṣūr du Sud-Est algérien, dont la fondation est attribuée dans les sources historiques et les légendes locales à des Berbères ibāḍites, présentent des caractéristiques architecturales et une organisation urbaine que l’on peut associer à ces communautés en particulier.
Il s’agira, à travers quelques exemples de qṣūr avoisinant le wādī Rīġ, ceux du Miya et du Mzāb et l’agglomération d’al-Manī‘a, de confronter les informations apportées par ces sources diversifiées aux résultats apportés par l’observation de terrain, afin d’en présenter une analyse comparative qui permette de comprendre le développement urbain médiéval de cette partie du Sahara et de déterminer en quoi l’ibāḍisme a pu dans une certaine mesure influencer l’architecture de ces centres urbains.

Colloque L’Ibadisme dans les sociétés islamiques médiévales, Modèles
politiques, formes d’organisations et d’interactions sociales, Madrid, Casa de Velázquez, 11-
13 décembre 2012.

This article is an old article from 2006. There has been since then new pieces of research on the subject, especially through the Maghribadite and Cyrille Aillet's publications, which allow to give a better understanding of the historical background than what is given in this brief article.

Ibāḍī Islam, practiced by the sultans who ruled Zanzibar from 1832-1964, is a moderate sect that emerged out of Khārijism. Like the Khārijites, Ibāḍīs recognize as Muslims only those who belong to their own sect; unlike the Khārijites, they do not support violence against non-members. Although they advocate ‘dissociation’ (barā’a) from non-Ibāḍīs, this is an attitude of withholding religious ‘friendship’ (walāya) and not one of hostility. Ibāḍism emerged during the heated political disputes of early Islam and was nurtured in the relative isolation of Oman’s mountainous interior and of remote areas of North Africa. The sultans of Zanzibar ruled over a highly diverse population, mainly Sunni Muslims. Bū Sa‘īdī rulers sponsored the development of Zanzibar as a centre of Islamic scholarship for both Ibāḍīs and Sunnīs. In practice, Ibāḍī-Sunnī relations were very friendly and Sunnī scholars were among the sultans’ closest confidants. During the reign of Sayyid Barghash (1870-88), some conversions of Ibāḍīs to Sunnī Ilsam provoked a severe reaction from the monarch; Ibāḍī scholars of the time also felt threatened by the attraction of Sunnī Islam. Nonetheless, Ibāḍī and Sunnī scholars had cordial and collegiate relations and crossed sectarian lines for the purposes of study and adjudication.

In this article, I want to offer the following two interventions in the discussion of “music” and “Islam”: first, I want to positively reassess Lois Ibsen al-Faruqi’s landmark 1985 article “Music, Musicians, and Muslim Law” by engaging with her central diagrammatic expression of Qur’ānic hierarchy; and second, I want to highlight an under-recognized aspect of Muslim jurisprudential scholarship with regard to a variety of sonic practices: the issue of function and practicality. Rather than criticizing or attempting to replace al-Faruqi’s claims, I want to think positively alongside her work in order to tease out further dimensions of her linear model. Adding the value dimension of practicality— which I explore through recent Ibāḍī scholarship—to her linear schematic model (and thereby pluralizing the relational network between sonic practices and Qur’ānic recitation) both allows a useful co-conception of Islamic jurisprudential scholarship on music and highlights a heuristic mode often overlooked in previous discussions. Specifically, I want to draw out of al-Faruqi’s model a latent Dumontian premise: rather than a linear hierarchy of gradual transformation from most similar to least similar to Qur’ānic recitation, recitation may be best understood as “encompassing” other Islamically licit sonic forms. Sonic practice might therefore exist— in anthropologist Joel Robbins’s terms— within a plural value scheme, with any specific practice tugged toward contrasting polarities.

This paper examines the process of the formation and trans-formation of the architecture of the rulers (especially its military part) in Oman. The hypothesis is that this process can be used to understand the formation and trans-formation of Islamic architecture everywhere and throughout 14 centuries even if we chose to examine its validity on a more restricted and relatively less known case study: The Islamic architecture in Oman during Al Ya’ariba Imamate 1624-1742

This is the chapter Eight (8) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the chapter one (4) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the chapter three (3) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This paper focuses on the impact of the First World War (WWI) and  its aftermath on the political activism of the Mzabi community in the Algerian desert. Following the French annexation of the Mzab Valley  in 1882 and the military draft imposed on Mzabis in 1912 and again in 1918, Mzabis, who are Amazighen (sing. Amazigh, also known as Berbers) and Ibadis (members of minority sect in Islam), felt more and more threatened by French policies towards the Mzab and its
inhabitants. This paper shows how the events of WWI and the hope in a French defeat and an Ottoman victory provided Mzabis with the opportunity to link to trans-border anti-colonial movements, especially in Tripolitania and Tunisia, and to promote their case for Mzab’s independence from French Algeria. Those movements, tied to Istanbul, had emerged earlier during the Italian invasion of Libya in 1911 and were reinvigorated during WWI and the Ottoman efforts of mass mobilization. Mzabis were linked to resistance groups in Tripolitania and thus were able to easily integrate themselves during WWI into cross-border anti-colonial movements. They perceived themselves as part of a pro-Ottoman North African movement opposed to European colonial projects and not part of an Algeria they considered to be ‘French.’ In particular, given their strong connections to Tripolitanian activists who were also Ibadis and connected to Istanbul, they believed that they were better positioned to negotiate their independence from France than the Maliki (followers of the
Maliki religious school of jurisprudence) majority of Algeria. Their
activism during and shortly after WWI and struggle for their own
independence as ‘Mzabis,’ distinguishing themselves from the rest of Maliki Algerians, highlight three important themes. The first is the need to create one uninterrupted narrative linking the Italian invasion of Tripolitania in 1911 to WWI in terms of shaping cross-border alliances and political strategies in the Maghrib towards the Allies. The second is the significance and continuous relevance of the Ottoman context for North African and Saharan communities in the definition of their political allegiances during WWI. Third are the alternative political imaginations Mzabi activism during WWI presents us. Rather than the usual perception of WWI as being the catalyst for nationalist stirrings in the region, the case of the Mzabis provides a counter-narrative to nationalist historiographies.

L’ARCHITECTURE DES MOSQUEES IBADITES AU M’ZAB, A DJERBA ET EN OMAN
Lecture des principes de conception et de construction
RESUME :
Notre recherche s’intéresse au patrimoine architectural produit par la communauté Ibadite au M’Zab, à Djerba et en Oman. Plus précisément, nous nous interrogeons sur les rapports pouvant exister entre les principales caractéristiques des mosquées de ces trois régions et la jurisprudence Ibadite traitant le domaine de l’architecture « `Imâra » et de l’urbanisme « `Umrân ». Nous avons procédé au relevé, à la description et à l’analyse d’un nombre représentatif de sanctuaires dans les trois terrains considérés. Une approche historique de l’Ibadisme et de ses fondements, en plus d’une recherche exploratoire dans le domaine du droit religieux relatif à la construction et à la gestion de la mosquée, ont permis de constituer le corpus juridique nécessaire pour notre analyse. Enfin, cette recherche a tenté d’esquisser une première Image de ce que peut être une « Mosquée Ibadite » et mettre en valeur le rôle qu’a pu jouer le Fiqh dans la constitution de cette architecture religieuse, tout en ne manquant pas de souligner les distorsions et les dépassements dont témoignent les monuments étudiés par rapport aux principes fixés par les savants religieux.

Organisation: Enki Baptiste
Discutants: Enki Baptiste, Salah Bahmani, Mohamed Merimi, Augustin Jomier
Modération: Cyrille Aillet

Prenant racine dans la Basra de la fin du VIIe siècle, l’ibadisme fut traversé, dès la décennie 740, par une lame de fond contestataire qui déboucha sur la fondation d’imamats dans des zones faiblement arrimées à la structure impériale irako-centrée, au Maghreb et dans le sud de la péninsule Arabique. Dès lors, les Ibadites du Maghreb et d’Oman connurent des trajectoires historiques autonomes. Composantes des sociétés islamiques, ces populations se démarquèrent aussi par une résistance commune à l’hégémonie des macro-pouvoirs régionaux. Cet atelier vise à examiner sur le temps long les modalités d’organisation politique et religieuse des groupes ibadites. En Oman, la tradition de l’imamat s’est perpétuée sans interruption jusqu’en 1957, devenant une institution de résistance aux initiatives étrangères, portugaises comme britanniques. Au Maghreb, après avoir été balayés par la da‘wa fatimide, les Ibadites se réorganisèrent en petites communautés gravitant autour de cercles savants, à Djerba et dans les oasis présahariennes. À la faveur d’une circulation accrue des hommes et des idées au début du XIXe siècle, le Mzab et Oman s’insérèrent dans les dynamiques globales de la renaissance panislamique Nous nous interrogerons sur la résilience de ces communautés religieuses et sur leurs capacités à s’intégrer dans des réseaux économiques et culturels. Face aux entreprises conquérantes abbassides puis coloniales, les Ibadites surent faire preuve de pragmatisme et adapter la défense de leurs particularismes aux évolutions géopolitiques qui touchèrent leurs zones d’implantation.

The Mediterranean Seminar is happy to announce our April 2021 Article of the Month, “Provenance in the Aggregate: The Social Life of an Arabic Manuscript Collection in Naples” by Paul Love: Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the Ibadi Al Bu Sa’id of Oman were recognized as the protagonists of an important empowering process towards the mercantile expansion on the oceanic coasts of Africa; therefore, there developed within the Indian Ocean cultural and religious connections represented by continuous migratory flows.

This is the chapter seven (7) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the chapter five (5) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the chapter one (1) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

This is the chapter (11) of my PhD thesis about the Architecture of the Ibadi mosques in Mzab, Djerba and Oman. I have submitted this Thesis in 2004 and got the highest honor and congratulations of the jury members who were the top French specialists in History of Islamic Architecture: Prof Emeritus Andre Raymond, Prof. Marianne Barrucand, were among this prestigious jury. I Published this thesis in a book: L’architecture des mosquées Ibadites au M’Zab, Djerba et Oman Tome I and II: Lecture des Principes de Conception et de Construction (Omn.Pres.Franc.). After the submission of my manuscript in the European libraries. I notices that several papers have been published in French and more recently in English based on my work and reproducing substantial elements of my results without any reference to my work. Therefore I decided to put this PhD thesis on academia chapter by chapter and who ever has offended the rules and ethics of intellectual property with my work will be held responsible.

تمثّل مقدّمات العلوم مركز النّظر في الفكر الإسلاميّ. وصارت هذه المقدّمات في فترة تاريخيّة معيّنة منبئة عن عمق التّأصيل النّظريّ الذي أدركه الفكر الإسلاميّ في مختلف فروعه. وبما أنّ مفاصل الفكر الإسلاميّ مترابطة ترابطا تكوينيّا فإنّ المقدّمات غالبا ما تكون تأصيلا لتوجّه فكريّ كامل تنعكس أصداؤه في كلّ مفاصل العمل المقدّم له. ولكنّ تحبير المقدّمات لم يكن في حدّ ذاته عملا متأصّلا. فكثير من النصوص التراثيّة قد ولجت إلى مضامينها الفكريّة دون مقدّمات، وكثير غيرها أثقل المقدّمات بحشو أقرب إلى التّرف الفكريّ أو الإطار الاستعراضي منه إلى الفكر التّأصيلي. والفكر الإباضي في بلاد المغرب غير بعيد عن هذه الحالات جميعها. وستسعى هذه الورقة العلميّة إلى تبيان موقع المقدّمات في الفكر الإباضي واصلة إيّاها بسياقها الثّقافي والمعرفي والمذهبي أيضا، متسائلة عن سياقاتها ووظائفها: حضورا أو غيابا. ثمّ سترصد الورقة أثر التّفاعل الفكري في بلاد المغرب وستحلّل كيف ستنتقل مقدّمات فكريّة بعينها من مذهب ما إلى أن تصير مقالات فكريّة في مذهب آخر بعد أن استكملت أسسها ومقوّماتها. ولنا في الفكر الحزمي والرّشدي وأثرهما في الإباضيّ أبي يعقوب الوارجلاني خير مثال. وهي صلات ما كانت معتبرة في بواتق التّفاعل الفكري الإسلامي لأنّه غالبا ما كان منظورا إليها من قوامها المذهبي لا من اشتراكها الفكري بين مختلف مذاهب المسلمين.

ABSTRACT This book is about the built Heritage produced by the Ibadites in the M’Zab, Djerba and Oman. Our interrogations concern the relationship that may exist between the typical aspect of mosques in these three regions and the Ibadi Jurisprudence dealing with architecture “`Imâra” and urban planning “`Umrân”. We proceeded to the description of a representative number of mosques in the three regions in question. A historical approach of Ibadism and an exploratory research in the field of Ibadi religious laws, related to the construction and the management of mosques, have been undertaken in order to build up the necessary corpus to our analysis. At last, this research made possible a first “image” of what could be the architecture of an “Ibadi mosque”, without ignoring the differences and the overtaking which characterize each region The book is in French. La problématique de cet ouvrage porte sur les rapports pouvant exister entre les principales caractéristiques des mosquées édifiées par les Ibadites et la jurisprudence traitant le domaine de l’architecture «`Imâra» et de l’urbanisme «`Umrân». Cette recherche analyse un nombre représentatif de mosquées édifiées par la communauté Ibadite au M’Zab, à Djerba et en Oman, durant la période allant du Xe au XVIIe siècles. Comme elle révèle, pour la première fois en Français, un corpus juridique Ibadite important régulant la conception, construction et gestion des mosquées

The question of association (walaya) and dissociation (bara’a) is a central problem in Ibadi literature, as it is closely allied to Ibadi self-definition and distinguishes the Ibadis most clearly from Sunni Muslims, who pay it scant attention.  While the concepts are derived from the Qur’an, full-scale legal debates on the subject developed as a result of the deposal of Omani Imam al-Salt b. Malik in 272/886, which led to the division of Omani scholars between the schools of Rustaq and Nizwa.  This paper examines the arguments of Ibn Baraka, Abu Sa‘id al-Kudami, Abu l-Hasan al-Bisyawi, and al-‘Awtabi al-Suhari, and the resolution of the issue found in Manhaj al-talibin by Khamis al-Shaqsi (echoed verbatim in Abu Nabhan’s Kitab al-irshad) and how it is treated in the work of the Algerian scholar, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Thamini, who deeply admired al-Shaqsi’s work but who delves into this topic much less deeply than the Omani authors.  The paper also addresses what walaya and bara’a meant in practice, whether and how individuals may dissociate from other individuals, the extent to which this influenced actual social relations, and whether dissociation should be announced or kept to oneself.  The paper ends with a look at the extent to which judgments on this issue have been revised by recent Ibadi scholars.

Islam has had its own heresiology and heresiologists. Although it is well known that Islam has no Church-type or ecclesiastical council with an authority to determine a universally accepted dogma, it does have a consensual orthodoxy. Classical Muslim Heresiography dedicated to describing and cataloguing dissidents provides us with a rich genre on a number of heresiological movements in the early Islam. Ibāḍī heresiology is one striking example of this heresiography. Al-Kashf wa-l-bayān is a well known example of Ibāḍī heresiography. Written by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Saʿīd al-Qalhātī, an Omanī-Ibāḍī scholar of the 6th/12th to early 7th/13th centuries, it has received much attention by scholars who specialize in Ibāḍism. Among various topics treated in al-Kashf, al-Qalhātī devotes a chapter that proposes a classification of heretical groups, designed according to the number 73 that refers to the ḥadīth concerning 73 sects. It is recognized here that it has a remarkable similarity with al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa-l-niḥal. Based on this similarity, K. Lewinstein suggested that al-Qalhātī is one of the main sources of al-Shahrastānī as the result of sharing the conviction of his supervisor Michael Cook, arguing that al-Qalhātī is a scholar of 5th/11th century. The later studies and new findings, especially J. Wilkinson’s, have proven that al-Qalhātī lived after al-Shahrastānī, making the latter the unacknowledged source of the former. Recently J. van Ess in his bulky volume on Islamic heresiography provided an analysis on al-Qalhātī’s heresiological account. This paper will attempt to identify the sources of al-Qalhātī in his heresiological classification, particularly in its parts with regard to Khawārij and Ṣifātiyya/Ḥashwiyya, which appear to utilize other sources different from al-Shahrastānī. It will also explore the characteristics of this classification by comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences with other examples of Islamic heresiography. In doing so, the paper attempts to show the shifts occurred in the Ibāḍī heresiography such as the shift from a kind of ‘thematic’ presentation of sīra books to the ‘schematic’ structure of al-Qalhātī, which is common in other heresiographical traditions like Ashʿarites’,  Ḥanafites’, and others. Consequently it is hoped that the discussion in this paper will reveal the sources and references of an Omanī-Ibāḍī author of 6th-7th/12th-13th century in heresiography.