Al-hajna — the stigma of mixed lineage

الهجنة

Al-hajna, the Arab stigma of impure lineage: Lisan al-Arab defines it as speech that disgraces you, the hajin being an Arab son of a slave-mother — 'for he is marked'. Ibn Abd Rabbih reports the Umayyads would not appoint the sons of slave-mothers, saying the Arabs do not fit them; al-Asma'i explained it astrologically — they saw their rule ending at a slave-mother's son's hands — but Ahmad Amin favours the popular explanation of sheer disdain. A Bedouin asking the qadi Suwar about his inheritance grew furious when told the hajin shared equally; Khalid al-Qasri, governor of Iraq, was lampooned because his mother was a Greek slave.

Overview

Hajna ("hybridity") among the Arabs was a social stigma that fell on the son of a slave woman. Ahmad Amin, in Duha al-Islam, presents its reports within the struggle between the Arabs and the mawali. ¹

Its meaning

Lisan al-Arab records that hajna in speech is what disparages you, and that the Arab "hajin" is the son of a slave woman because he is defective. ¹

The position of the Umayyads

Ibn Abd Rabbih mentions that the Umayyads did not appoint sons of slave women as caliphs, and that they said the Arabs were not suited to be ruled by them. Al-Asma'i explained this by their belief that their rule would end at the hands of the son of a mother who had borne a child as a concubine. Ahmad Amin, however, inclines to another explanation, namely that people held them in contempt. ¹

Examples

It is told that a Bedouin asked the judge Suwwar about his inheritance and that of his brother, who was a hajin, and that he answered that the wealth was shared equally among them. The Bedouin was angered at the hajin being made equal to him. ¹

Khalid ibn Abd Allah al-Qasri faced the satire of poets because his mother was a Byzantine slave woman. ¹

Hadr (blood and value wasted: no retaliation, no compensation)

Hadr means waste or nullity; as a technical term, a hadr soul is one for which there is neither retaliation, diya nor expiation. The principle is that a human life is protected, but an apostate is an exception agreed by the jurists: the imam or his deputy executes him, and if someone other than the imam kills him without authorisation there is no retaliation or diya, though he is disciplined (ta'zir). The blood of a heretic whose innovation is takfiri is also wasted, and so is that of a belligerent non-Muslim; non-combatants such as women, children, the old, and monks may not be killed. The blood of a married adulterer is wasted in the view of most jurists; the Hanafis require that the killing follow a judgment. Where a wounded person's status changed between protected and wasted before death, the majority hold the earlier wound unliable, while Ibn al-Qasim (Maliki) holds a diya due. If a Muslim shot a hadr person who then converted before the arrow struck, the majority hold no retaliation is due, while the Shafi'is hold, in the sounder view, a lighter diya paid by the kin. For the Shafi'is the retaliation is claimed by the Muslim next of kin; for the Hanbalis it is the imam who executes. A person whose blood is wasted need not be given water he needs, and the Shafi'is and Hanbalis permit a compelled person to kill such a person to save his own life if no other food is found. One whose blood was wasted by a crime who kills himself gets no expiation from that act, since he has no right to spill his own blood.

Al-hajna — the stigma of mixed lineage

At a glance

Overview

Its meaning

The position of the Umayyads

Examples

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Ideas

Hadr (blood and value wasted: no retaliation, no compensation)