Tradition versus culture
Family: Religion and custom · 89 entries
Entries on this theme
Event
Introduction of Idols to Mecca
c. 450 BCEʿAmr ibn Luḥayy’s import of idols to the Hijaz and setting Hubal inside the Ka‘ba — the first idolatry in Mecca.ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s Vow and the Lot
c. 550 CEHis vow to sacrifice a son; the lot fell on ʿAbdullāh, and by an auguress’s counsel camels were raised to one hundred and slaughtered in his stead — fixing the Arab bloodwit at a hundred camels.The Dhat Anwat incident
January 630 CE · Shawwal 8 AHOn the march to Hunayn the army passed the sacred tree Dhat Anwat, where pagans hung their weapons and held rites; some of the newly converted soldiers asked the Prophet to 'appoint for us a Dhat Anwat as they have one', and he rebuked the request, likening it to the Israelites' demand that Moses make them a god.
Person
Zayd ibn Amr
c. 560 CEA Meccan seeker who rejected the idols of his people and sought 'the religion of Abraham' years before the Prophet's mission — the tradition's example of the hanif, the indigenous monotheist.ʿAmr ibn Luḥayy
Khuza‘a’s chief who brought idols to the Hijaz, set Hubal inside the Ka‘ba and instituted the consecrated-livestock customs.
Concept
The abjad letters named for Madyan's kings
al-Mas'udi's etymology of the abjad numeral letters — the 29 letters of the abjad order named after six kings of Shu'ayb's people: Abjad of Mecca and the Hijaz, Hawwaz and Hutti of Wajj (the Ta'if and Najd lands), and Kalamn, Sa'fas and Qursht of Madyan or Egypt.Intellectual invasion (al-ghazw al-fikri) in the Sheikh's view
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that part of the nation's confused understanding comes from an organised intellectual and cultural invasion, and that in his view the West and colonialism drain wealth and minds.Islamic management
Islamic management as Tareq al-Suwaidan frames it: a project to rewrite the science of management on the philosophy of tawhid and the principle of following the Prophet, rather than copying Western categories and colouring them with verses; he is writing it, unpublished so far, drawing on Muhammad al-Ashqar's classification of the Prophet's roles.Media and the responsibility of its producers
Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's position on programmes and channels that present superstition, fortune-telling and frivolity, the responsibility of those who make, present and sponsor them before God and people, and his view that they should not be watched.al-Anwāʾ (Star Rains)
Al-Anwāʾ: attributing rain to star-settings — the Prophet counted it ingratitude to God.Jahiliyya names of days and months
The Arabs' Jahiliyya week — Awwal, Ahwan, Jubar, Dubar, Mu'nis, 'Aruba, Shiyar — and their months: Natiq for Muharram, Thaqil for Safar, then Taliq, Najir, Aslakh, Amih, Ahlak, Kasa', Zahir, Bark, Harf and Ta'ss for Dhu al-Hijja; the Sabbath named for the severing of creation's week.The ill-omened days
Every Wednesday falling on the fourth of the month in the Arabs' reckoning — the fourth past, the fourteenth, the fourteenth remaining and the twenty-fourth.Divining Arrows
Azlam: divining arrows consulted before undertakings — forbidden in the Qurʾan among Satan’s works.The temples of the seven planets
The report that seven great houses were raised to the planets — the Ka'ba named Saturn's for its endurance, Isfahan's Maris, India's magnet-shrine Mandusan, Manushihr's lunar Nawbahar at Balkh whose wardens took the title Barmak, and al-Dahhak's Venus-temple Ghumdan at San'a' — each idol-house built when the stars were seen to hide.The fire-temples
The first fire-temple builder, in al-Mas'udi's telling, was Afridun — told the flame was a link to God of the luminous kind, he took a share to Khurasan: the houses of Tus, Bukhara's Bard-Sura, Bahman's Karakir in Sijistan, the Shiz house whose idols Anushirwan cast out or whose fire he moved to al-Baraka, Kaykhusraw's Kawsaja, Qumis's Jarish spared by Alexander, Siyawush's Kanjadha toward China, and Arjan's — the animals' rush at flame glossed by moth and by Basra's lamp-fished waters.The scholars' duty to speak the truth
Arjun gives rulers the power to act and scholars the word, and holds that the word of truth precedes the sword in effect. He cites Izz al-Din ibn Abd al-Salam's stance against the Crusaders as an example, and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz's saying that authority is shared between ruler and ruled. His proposal that scholars draft a written reform plan is his own view.The ghul
The desert ghul — goat-legged, appearing to travellers in lonely places; Arabs kept to the track chanting the goat-foot rajaz until it fled to the wadis. Umar is said to have struck one with his sword before Islam. Naturalist readings made it a deformed beast; a Hindu-astral theory made it the 48 stars 'bearing the ghul's head' (Ptolemy, Abu Ma'shar's Great Introduction). Distinct from the sa'la'at; the qutrub and ghaddar haunt Yemen and Upper Egypt; and the egg-genealogy of the jinn assigns them and the marada, abalisa and hawam their dwelling-places.Wall (haith) and the shared wall
The wall (haith) and the rules on a shared wall: how a partner may be compelled to share the cost of repair, the right to set one's beams into a neighbour's wall, and the demolition of a wall that threatens to fall. The Hanbalis and the older Shafi'i view hold that a neighbour may be compelled to allow his neighbour's beams into the wall.Need (hajah) in fiqh
Hajah in the language is want; as a technical term it is what people need to remove a hardship that would otherwise lead to constriction. The law takes need into account in worship, custom, dealings and offences: it relaxes rules for the sick and the traveller and permits what would not be allowed without need, such as the sale of fresh dates for dried dates on the tree (the ariya). The schools differ on whether need is an independent basis for a ruling.Chamberlain (hajib)
A hajib is the attendant at the door of a ruler or judge who admits people. The encyclopedia distinguishes him from the gatekeeper and the warden. The jurists hold that a chamberlain may be appointed as needed, and the entry sets out his conditions and manners, including honesty and avoiding bribes.al-Hāma (Vengeful Owl)
Al-Hāma: the belief that a slain man’s spirit becomes an owl crying ‘give me to drink’ until avenged — Islam negated it.The hawatif (calling voices)
Voices heard without a visible body — commonest (al-Mas'udi says) around the Prophet's birth and mission; the naturalist reading traces them to the fancies bred by desert solitude and melancholy.al-Hums
The Hums: the self-styled ‘rigorous’ fraternity of Quraysh and allies who invented Hajj innovations — shunning ‘Arafa, Rafm clothes, naked tawaf, back-door entry in ihram.Idol worship in the Jahiliyya and its rites
The rites of idol worship among the Arabs of the Jahiliyya as al-Raheeq al-Makhtum lists them: devotion and appeal to the idols as intercessors with God, pilgrimage, circumambulation and prostration to them, slaughter for them and in their names, a share of food, crops and cattle set aside for them, vows, and the consecrated animals; most were introduced by Amr ibn Luhayy and thought a good innovation rather than a change of Ibrahim's religion, and the Qur'an rejects them in al-An'am, al-Ma'ida, al-Zumar and Yunus.Sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses
The custom of the settled Arabs of seeking wet-nurses in the desert for their children, to keep them from the diseases of the towns, strengthen their bodies and nerves, and let them master pure Arabic from the cradle; by it the Prophet was nursed among Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr by Halima.Iyafa: augury by birds, and the aversion to food
In the lexicon, iyafa means disliking food or drink, and also the augury of birds: reading omens of good or ill from their names, cries and flight paths. Augury by birds was an Arab custom in the pre-Islamic era; Islam abolished it, returned the matter to God's absolute will and to the fixed laws of creation. A report counts augury, bird-omens and the drawing of lines as a form of falsehood, a matter treated under the heading of omens. In the sense of aversion to food, a report from Khalid ibn al-Walid tells of a dish of lizard set before the Prophet, which he withdrew from because it was not common in his people's land and he was not used to it; Khalid then ate it in his presence and he did not forbid it, which shows it is lawful and that his withdrawal was from unfamiliarity.Jahala (uncertainty in a contract or claim)
Jahala in contracts and claims is ignorance of the thing contracted for, of the person in whose favour an acknowledgement is made, or of the claim itself. The encyclopedia divides it into three degrees. The gross kind, which leads to dispute, voids a contract; examples are the sales of touching and throwing, and the sale of goods by lot without weighing, which is allowed out of need. The schools differ on an unknown term, on guarantees, agency, acknowledgement and claims.Jāhilī Marriage Forms
Four pagan marriage forms — common, istibda‘ (lending a wife for a better lineage), communal paternity assignment, and wife-swapping (al-badal) — Islam abolished all but the first.Jawaz (permissibility, and its wider sense in fiqh)
Jawaz in the language is possibility and permission. In the technical sense of fiqh it is often used to mean permission, and at times in a wider sense that covers the obligatory, the recommended and the disliked, depending on the context. The encyclopedia notes that when a contract is considered binding, its harms are weighed, as in the reward for a task, the bequest and the profit-sharing partnership.Jiha (direction, purpose or head in fiqh)
Jiha in the language is the place one faces or aims at. In fiqh the word is used for a purpose to which property is assigned, such as an endowment for a perpetual purpose like the poor. The encyclopedia records disputes between giver and receiver over the purpose, such as a dispute over whether a payment was a gift or part of the dower, and the two ways in Islam by which a child belongs to the faith: a parent's conversion, or being found in Muslim territory.Jihad (fighting in the way of God, in fiqh)
In fiqh, jihad is fighting the enemy. The Kuwaiti encyclopedia sets out its ruling (obligatory in general, and personally obligatory in certain cases), the duty to call the unbelievers to Islam before fighting, the conditions for its obligation, the rules for those who join it (parents, creditors, the sick, women), flight from battle, treachery, mutilation and burning, truces and the use of the enemy's property.Jinaya (offence against the person or body)
In fiqh a jinaya is any forbidden act against a person, body or property. The Kuwaiti encyclopedia divides it into three kinds: offences against life (killing), offences against what is less than life (injuries to limbs and wounds to the head and face), and offences against something that is life in one respect and not in another, such as the unborn child. It sets out the rules for intentional, quasi-intentional and accidental killing, retaliation (qisas) for injuries under the conditions of equivalence, the classes of head wounds (such as the wound that exposes bone and the one that reaches the membrane around the brain), and the blood-money, compensation and discretionary awards.Jins (kind or genus in fiqh)
Jins in the language means a kind of anything. Among the jurists it names a set of different sorts. The concept governs several rulings: in zakat, animals or crops of one kind are combined toward the threshold while different kinds are not; in ribawi sales, the sameness of kind decides the rule; in salam (advance sale) the kind of the item promised must be stated; and in disputes over a usurped item, the kind of the thing is one of the points on which the parties may disagree.Equality in marriage (kafaa)
Kafaa in marriage is a particular equality between the spouses that averts shame. The qualities counted are religion, lineage, freedom, craft, means and freedom from defects, and the jurists differ on each. It is a right of the woman and of her guardians; it is judged at the time of the contract; most jurists require it for the marriage to continue rather than for it to be valid. The Hanafis and Hanbalis require it on the man's side only; Abu Yusuf and Muhammad and others add the woman's side. Her consent and the guardians' waive it; a defect in it gives the right to annul, and the schools differ on whether the marriage is void or annullable.Soothsaying & Augury
Kahāna, ‘irāfa and sand-reading: the pagan trade in the unseen through jinn and stars — all forbidden by the Prophet.The Kawsaj
The mule-rider of Adharmah's first day in Iraq and Fars — gorged for days on walnuts, garlic and fat meats, he is doused with cold water unfazed and cries 'garma garma' (warm, warm) in Persian; a Persian festival joy unknown in Syria, Egypt or Yemen.The moon's night-litany
The Arabs' question-and-answer litany on the moon each night of the month — first night 'a suckling kid, its folk milked into a pail', two 'tales of two false tribes', eight 'a loaf split by brothers', thirteen 'a dazzling moon', fifteen 'the full, the days spent' — through the month's wane.The Night of the Ghatās (Epiphany)
Egypt's Epiphany night — al-Mas'udi attended in 330 when the Ikhshid lit a thousand torches from his al-Mukhtara palace on the river island and hundreds of thousands, Muslims and Christians, thronged boats and banks; the streets never close and most plunge into the Nile believing it preserves from sickness.Maysar (Gambling)
Maysar: arrow-casting gambling on slaughtered camels — the Qurʾan condemned it with wine as a great sin.Mihragan
The sixteenth of Mihrmah — the Persian feast set a hundred and seventy-four days after Nowruz.al-Nasīʾ (Intercalation)
Al-Nasīʾ: shifting the sacred months to fit seasonal interests until the Hajj realigned in 10 AH — the Qurʾan abolished it as ‘an excess of disbelief’.Nayruz
The first day of Farwardinmah, head of the Persian year — one hundred and seventy-four days from the Mihragan — a festival of joy for the Persians.Qiyafa (likeness-reading)
The art of tracing likeness — reading footprints and kinship resemblance: debated by the ancients, a speciality of Banu Mudlij and the Mudar tribes, famous in the Jafar trackers and in the Qurashi pursuers whom the spider's web turned back at the cave of Thawr; jurists disputed its evidential force.Consecrated Livestock
Animals the pagans consecrated — Bahira, Saʾiba, Wasila, Hami — neither ridden nor milked except for guests; the Qurʾan rebuked the custom.Shi'ar (the distinctive sign: the inner garment, a battle cry, and dress that sets a group apart)
Shi'ar in language is the garment that touches the body, under the outer cloak; in the jurists' usage it is the clear distinctive sign. As a war cry it is the call by which fighters know one another. Most jurists hold that imitating non-Muslims in a dress that marks them out is a ground for judging the imitator an unbeliever in outward legal terms, when done in Muslim lands out of inclination to them, unless necessity requires it. Dress that is conspicuously against custom is disliked; most jurists hold that instruments of drinking gatherings, such as the lute and the pipe, are forbidden.Qur'anic factors of social decline
Arjun lists three signs of decline: decay at the top of society, which warns of general corruption; luxury, which kills honour and makes vice ordinary; and reliance on oppressors. He reads the Qur'an as showing that social corruption is requited faster than unbelief in this life.Qur'anic factors that keep society whole
Arjun names three factors by which God keeps human society from breaking apart: kinship brotherhood rooted in one origin, the affection and mercy God set between spouses as the base of the first family, and mutual acquaintance (ta'aruf) among human groups. When society turns from brotherhood and affection, selfishness takes hold and the decline begins.God's sunan among peoples
Rida holds that every nation keeps a remnant of the righteous who stand as God's proof; when they become few, corruption prevails and God's requital draws near. He argues that the root of religion brings the good of this world before the next, and that the chastisements in the Qur'an fall because of shirk and of sins that corrupt social order.Tashabbuh (imitating others)
Tashabbuh is taking on the look of another; jurists use the word in its lexical sense. For dress that marks unbelievers, the majority of Hanafis (on the sound view), Malikis and Shafiis rule that one who wears it out of inclination to them in Muslim lands, without necessity, becomes an unbeliever; the Hanbalis call it forbidden without unbelief, and one Hanafi view requires belief in their creed. Imitation in worship is disliked (prayer at makruh times, shortened prayer, continuous fasting, singling out Ashura for fasting), imitating them at their festivals is not permitted, men imitating women and the reverse is disliked by most, and protected non-Muslims are marked by signs of dress and mounts.Tatayyur (taking omens of ill luck)
Tatayyur is taking an omen of ill luck from a bird or the like, which Islam abolished. Whoever believes the sight causes the outcome has committed unbelief; whoever feels dread but trusts God is not harmed. A good omen is lawful, and good opinion of God is commanded.Tiyara (Ill Omen)
Tiyara: ill-omen beliefs in days, houses, women and horses — Islam negated it: ‘no contagion, no omen’.Custom (urf) as a source of rulings
In the lexicon, urf is what the soul knows of good and is at ease with; it is the opposite of nukr. As a technical term it is what souls have settled upon by the testimony of reason and what natures accept. Some distinguish custom (adah) from urf: custom is the practical usage, and urf in the strict sense is the verbal usage. Verbal custom is the agreement of a people to use a word for one meaning so that no other comes to mind; practical custom is what people habitually do in their dealings, such as selling by mutual handing over. Custom is divided into general and specific, sound and corrupt, and fixed and changing. Jurists take it into account when it is steady or prevailing, does not contradict an explicit text, is not overridden by an explicit statement to the contrary, and existed when the act was made. The majority of Hanafis and Shafi'is count only general custom; where custom conflicts with a text only in part, the majority do not let it specify or restrict the text, while the Hanafis do.Waʾd (Infant Burial)
Waʾd: burying infant girls alive out of fear of poverty or disgrace — Islam abolished it and classed it among the gravest sins.The ill-omened Wednesday
The Arabs' aversion to Wednesday traced by al-Mas'udi to the barren wind that reached 'Ad on a Wednesday and left none alive before the next.Zajr and iyafa (augury)
Augury — the zajr of birds, tafa'ul and tatayyur, the sanih and barih: counted among the Arabs' specialities, zajr belonging to Banu Asad as kahana to Yemen; mountaineers and desert-dwellers were the readiest augurs.
Object
al-Lāt
al-Lāt — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.al-ʿUzzā
al-ʿUzzā — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Hubal
Hubal — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Manāt
Manāt — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Nasr
Nasr — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Suwāʿ
Suwāʿ — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Wadd
Wadd — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Yaghūth
Yaghūth — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.Yaʿūq
Yaʿūq — a pre-Islamic Arabian idol.
Practice
Honouring the guest (ikram al-dayf)
Honouring the guest among the Arabs as Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy presents it: welcome without questioning, generosity without pretence, and the host sharing his food with the guest, with stories and sayings, some of them unattributed.Mawlid al-Nabi (birthday celebrations)
Public celebrations of the Prophet's birth on 12 Rabi al-Awwal across most of the Muslim world — processions, praise-chants and fairs; customary to many, disputed by some.Visiting graves
Visiting graveyards for prayer and remembrance; permitted by the Prophet after an earlier prohibition, with practices that differ by country — some forms scholars reject.
Screening Room
The Imam
An Arabic series on the life of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his steadfastness during the Mihna — the largest Arabic drama about a Sunni scholar-saint.The Lizard
2004 CE · 1425 AH†The Lizard.Destiny
1997 CE · 1418 AH†Youssef Chahine's film about Ibn Rushd in Almohad Cordoba on the eve of the burning of his books — a deliberate parallel with 1990s Egypt and religious militancy.The Perfect Candidate
2019 CE · 1440 AH†Haifaa al-Mansour's film about a Saudi doctor who runs for a municipal council seat in a conservative town.Alif
The Pakistani series pairing a famous filmmaker with a young Qur'an memoriser — contemporary Pakistani TV's most-discussed treatment of art, faith and the soul.Barakah Meets Barakah
2016 CE · 1437 AH†Mahmoud Sabbagh's debut — Saudi Arabia's first romantic comedy — about a municipal worker and a social-media celebrity in Jeddah; a gentle push at social boundaries.Persepolis
2007 CE · 1428 AH†The French-Iranian animated film of Marjane Satrapi's childhood in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iran — Oscar-nominated.My Son the Fanatic
1997 CE · 1418 AH†My Son the Fanatic.Hür Adam: Bediüzzaman Said Nursi
2011 CE · 1432 AH†A Turkish biopic of Bediüzzaman Said Nursi — Kurdish scholar to author of the Risale-i Nur — the largest film about a modern Turkish religious scholar.Perempuan Berkalung Sorban
2009 CE · 1430 AH†Perempuan Berkalung Sorban.Joyland
2022 CE · 1443 AH†Saim Sadiq's Cannes-winning film about a Lahore family shaken when the son joins a dance theatre — briefly banned in Pakistan, then released amid religious debate.Xala
1975 CE · 1395 AH†Xala.Leila
1997 CE · 1418 AH†Leila.Mawlana
2016 CE · 1437 AH†Egyptian film from Ibrahim Issa's novel about a famous TV preacher entangled in power and faith conflicts; starring Amr Saad.Moolaadé
2004 CE · 1425 AH†Moolaadé.The Night of Counting the Years
1969 CE · 1389 AH†The Night of Counting the Years.Mustang
2015 CE · 1436 AH†Film about five Turkish sisters facing strict custom in a Black Sea village; Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film.Ramy
Ramy Youssef's Hulu comedy-drama about an Egyptian-American torn between faith and appetite in New Jersey — the first major US series led by a Muslim character; Golden Globe winner.Sang Pencerah
2010 CE · 1431 AH†Hanung Bramantyo's film on Ahmad Dahlan, founder of Muhammadiyah, and the early years of Indonesia's Islamic reform movement in Yogyakarta.Sheikh Jackson
2017 CE · 1438 AH†Sheikh Jackson.Wadjda
2012 CE · 1433 AH†Haifaa al-Mansour's film — the first feature directed by a woman inside Saudi Arabia — about a girl in Riyadh who wants a bicycle; a quiet study of gender and public space.Zindagi Tamasha
2019 CE · 1440 AH†A Pakistani film about a devout naat-reciter shunned after a wedding video of him dancing goes viral — delayed by religious protest, then Pakistan's Oscar submission.
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