Sessions

6. The Disintegration of the Jihad State and the Beginnings of Fiqh (692–750)

The early Islamic expansion movement experiences both its zenith and its decline. Social tensions between Arabs and non-Arabs continue to intensify. Among the newly emerging religio-political factions are the Murjiʾah, Qadarīyah, Jahmīyah, and Ibāḍīyah. Furthermore, the distinct Islamic science of norm, fiqh, emerges and is cultivated within various local schools.

6.1. Third Phase of Expansion: From ʿAbd al-Malik to Sulaymān (692–717)

6.1.1. Consolidation of the State and the Third Phase of Expansion

After regaining control of Arabia, ʿAbd al-Malik implemented an administrative reform (introducing Arabic as the language of the chancery) and a coinage reform (replacing the Sasanian and Byzantine coinages with coins bearing Arabic-Islamic legend). In 694, al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf was appointed governor of Iraq, from which he administered the entire eastern part of the empire until 715. In 705, he transferred his seat of government to the newly founded city of Wāsiṭ (“the Middle”), situated between Kufa and Basra. To prevent a decline in state revenues, he decreed that even members of the ahl al-dhimma who had already converted to Islam were to continue paying the jizya.

During the Second Fitna, the Arabs were pushed back from Ifrīqiya by the Byzantines. To reconquer the region, ʿAbd al-Malik placed the entire tax revenue of Egypt at the disposal of the newly appointed governor of Ifrīqiya, Ḥassān ibn Nuʿmān, and authorized him to raise an army of 40,000 men. The Arabs advancing westward were confronted by Amazigh tribes from the region of northeastern Algeria, led by a woman who became known in Muslim historiography as the Kāhina (“priestess”). It was not uncommon for women to exercise political influence among the Amazigh, as their society was still partly organized along matrilineal lines. The Kāhina was reputed to be a prophetess and must have been a gifted orator. With the confederation of tribes she had organized, she confronted Ḥassān’s army and drove it back into Cyrenaica. For nearly three years, the Muslims remained on the defensive, while the Byzantines returned and occupied Carthage and other coastal fortresses. It was not until around 698 that Ḥassān ibn Nuʿmān, with the support of Amazigh tribes and Arab naval forces, succeeded in expelling the Byzantines from Carthage and the other coastal strongholds. The Amazigh Kāhina fell in battle. At the beginning of the 8th century, Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr completed the conquest of the North African coast and appointed the Amazigh Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād governor of Tingis, present-day Tangier.

Under al-Walīd (r. 705-715), the expansion of the Islamic state continued. The most significant conquests occurred within a few months. In the spring of 711 in the west, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, acting on his own initiative, crossed into Europe with an army of 7,000 exclusively Amazigh fighters. The mountain at the foot of which he landed has ever since borne his name (Arabic jabal Ṭāriq = “Mountain of Ṭāriq” → Gibraltar). After defeating the Visigothic king Roderic in July 711, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād and Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr were able to conquer the entire Iberian Peninsula within a few years. Under the name of al-Andalus, this region was incorporated into the Islamic Empire. In the same year, the young commander Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim conquered Sindh in the eastern part of the Islamic Empire, in present-day southern Pakistan, including the city of Multan. A year later in the northeast, Qutayba ibn Muslim —the governor of Khorasan— conquered Khwarazm and Transoxiana, including the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand.

6.1.2. State Measures in the Religious Sphere

During the reigns of the caliphs ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Walīd, measures were also undertaken in the religious sphere. In 703, al-Ḥajjāj took the initiative to standardize the orthography of the Qurʾān. To eliminate any ambiguities, letters of similar form were henceforth differentiated by diacritical marks. The commission was led by the scholar al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 728).

Al-Walīd implemented two ambitious religious building projects: 1. In Damascus, he had the Church of St. John, which had been protected by treaty, demolished and incorporated into the existing mosque complex, and in its place the Umayyad Mosque —still standing today— was constructed; 2. In Medina, he had his governor demolish and rebuild the Prophet’s Mosque on a larger scale. Both structures incorporated a new architectural element: a niche indicating the position of the prayer leader and the direction of the qibla. This prayer niche, named miḥrāb in reference to the Qurʾanic account of the annunciation of John (Q 3:39), later became an inherent component of mosque architecture. However, Muslims with traditionalist leanings continued to resist the miḥrāb for a long time. It is reported, for instance, that the Iraqi traditionist Yazīd ibn Hārūn (d. 821) once had the miḥrāb demolished in a private mosque then under construction, as he apparently regarded it an unlawful innovation.

The Dome of the Rock, however, appears to have retained its function as a religious sanctuary for some time. It is reported that rituals not typical of a mosque were performed there under al-Walīd. Forty servants from the local population were assigned to the building; they were known as the “Guardians of the Rock” (ḥurrās al-ṣakhra). Working in shifts, they were responsible for opening and closing the gates, tending the lamps, and general maintenance of the building. Every Monday and Thursday, a special service was held beginning with preparations by the Rock servants, the anointing of the Rock, and the censing of the building. The city’s believers were then called to prayer. After the prayer, the Rock servants washed and dried the Rock once more, and the doors were locked again.

6.1.3. The Revolt of Ibn al-Ashʿath and the New Religio-Political Parties

The caliphs also sought to extend their control within the state. After the victory over ʿAbdallāh ibn al-Zubayr, various Kharijite groups, in particular the Azraqites, remained active in Iraq and Iran. Under their caliph al-Qaṭarī ibn al-Fujāʿa, they ravaged large areas of Persia with fire and sword, resisting the numerically superior government forces persistently for several years. In 698, however, al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra succeeded in defeating them once and for all.

Around 700, another uprising broke out that nearly brought the Arab Empire to the brink of collapse. The catalyst was the conduct of al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf in Iraq. Around 700, the Kindite tribal chief Ibn al-Ashʿath —grandson of al-Ashʿath ibn Qays— led a rebellion advancing from eastern Iran toward Iraq, calling for al-Ḥajjāj’s removal. After suppressing the revolt, which was also supported by the Shīʿa of Kufa, al-Ḥajjāj ruthlessly persecuted its supporters. A number of Shīʿīs from Kufa fled to Iran, where they founded the city of Qom. It later became one of the most important centers of Shīʿism.

Within Shiism at that time, the Kaysāniyya (see above, 5.3.3.) played an important role. The Kaysānites still attached soteriological hopes to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya, the mahdī proclaimed earlier by al-Mukhtār, though he himself did not wish to be one. When Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya died in 700, many of his followers believed that he had not truly died but had been withdrawn from the world, hidden in the ravines of Mount Raḍwā north of Medina, guarded by angels and nourished with food from Paradise. They expected that he would soon reemerge from his hiding place, rally his followers, vanquish his enemies, and “fill the earth with justice, just as it had been filled with injustice.” The Kaysānite doctrines —particularly the notions of “occultation” (ghayba) and expected return (rajʿa) of the Mahdī—were later applied by other Shīʿī branches to different figures, and the concept of the Mahdī was also taken up in non-Shīʿī Muslim thought. The Kaysāniyya is therefore of great significance in the religious history of Islam.

6.1.3.1. The Murjiʾites

While the Shīʿīs played only a marginal role in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s revolt, another group was far more prominent, namely the Qurʾān reciters associated with the Murjiʾah. The religious-political movement of the Murjiʾah (“Those Who Postpone”) is traced back to Ḥasan, the son of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya. In the early 690s, he wrote an open letter in which he developed the doctrine that, based on Surah 9:106, judgment concerning those who had taken part in the fitna —namely, Ṭalḥa, al-Zubayr, ʿAlī, and ʿUthmān— should be postponed until God passes judgment on them (in the Hereafter). Since it is for God alone to judge these people, Muslims were to refrain from taking sides until then. With this conciliatory and moderate stance, the Murjiʾah —also known as the Murjiʾites— were closely aligned with the ahl al-sunnah.

Despite their conciliatory outlook, many Murjiʾites were drawn into Ibn al-Ashʿath’s revolt, as they were mawālī and al-Ḥajjāj pursued policies intended to preserve the Arabs’ political privileges. He had decreed that non-Muslims who converted to Islam were still required to pay the jizya. The fact that many Murjiʾite Qurʾān reciters joined Ibn al-Ashʿath’s uprising was probably due to al-Ḥajjāj’s mockery of Ibn Masʿūd and his mode of Qurʾānic recitation, along with his threat to massacre the people of Kufa if they did not stop reciting according to it. Following the suppression of the uprising by al-Ḥajjāj, many Murjiʾite Qurʾān reciters were executed, while others fled to the ḥaram of Mecca. Years later, in 713, Murjiʾites who had taken part in Ibn al-Ashʿath’s revolt and sought refuge in Mecca were arrested by the Meccan governor Khālid al-Qasrī and handed over to al-Ḥajjāj for execution. The brutality with which al-Walīd and his governors acted against these opponents alienated the pious circles from the Umayyad state and reinforced their conviction that it was an “unjust regime.”

6.1.3.2. The Qadarites

Alongside the Murjiʾites, there was another group that voiced criticism of the rulers on religio-political grounds. Their name derives from the Arabic term qadar, which in the Qurʾān generally denotes acts of divine determination. In the political-theological discussions of the Umayyad period concerning qadar, one Qurʾanic passage was of particular significance —where Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab bint Jaḥsh, criticized by those around him, is justified through qadar. According to Qurʾān (Q 33:38), God's command was qadar maqdūr, “a decree ordained by God.” As Arabic sources report, the Umayyads also justified their injustices with reference to God’s qadar. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is said to have rejected this claim indignantly, which apparently caused him political difficulties.

Those who continued to address this issue and emphasized individual responsibility became known as Qadarites. In their view, no one should be able to justify their sins by claiming to have been compelled to commit them because God had predestined them. Among those who, at that time, opposed such predestinarian justifications for the wrongdoing of political rulers was the scholar Makhūl ibn Abī Muslim (d. 731–37), originally from eastern Iran. He held the view that only good is apportioned to humans by God, while evil comes from themselves.

According to Qadarite doctrine, anyone who committed a grave sin and did not return in penitence was a munāfiq and thus condemned to eternal punishment in hell. The Qadarites were, in a sense, ethical rigorists. Many came into conflict with the state authorities because of their outspoken criticism of the rulers. Unlike the Murjiʾites, however, they were never drawn into political uprisings. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī warned against jeopardizing communal unity through rebellion against allegedly sinful rulers. Nevertheless, after criticizing al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf, he had to withdraw from public life. One of the most influential Islamic ideas traceable to the Qadarite milieu is that of the punishment of the grave (ʿadhāb al-qabr), which is believed to precede the final punishment in the hereafter. Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is said to have propagated this concept with reference to the Qurʾānic verse: “We shall punish them twice” (Q 9:101).

6.1.3.3. The Anti-Sectarian Ideal

Already at that time, some Muslims seem to have taken issue with the emergence of the Qadarites and Murjiʾites as distinct religio-political factions. They put them in the same category as the Shīʿīs and Kharijites. As an example, one may refer to al-Shaʿbī, who was drawn into Ibn al-Ashʿath’s revolt in 699 but later reconciled with the Umayyads and served as a prince’s tutor. The following saying is transmitted from him: “Know that good deeds come from God and evil from your own self, yet be not a Qadarite. Love the family of the Prophet of God, yet be not a Shīʿī. Withhold judgment in doubtful matters, yet be not one who postpones [i.e., a Murjiʾite]. Act according to the Qurʾān, yet be not a Ḥārūrite [i.e., a Kharijite].” Al-Shaʿbī thus maintained that principles pursued by the various movements of his time were fundamentally valid, yet their sectarian exclusivism did not merit imitation. This anti-sectarian ideal later became an integral element of Sunni identity.

6.2. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and the Mawālī (717–720)

Under the caliphs Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (715–717) and ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (717–720), the pace of territorial expansion slowed. With ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, a man ascended the throne who had been closely associated with religious scholarship since his youth in Medina. During the caliphate of al-Walīd, he had criticized his rule as a regime of injustice. Upon assuming power, he is said to have reproached one of his governors for failing to observe the Sunnah of the Prophet and for introducing unlawful innovations (bidaʿ). This suggests that he was closely aligned with the ahl al-sunnah. During his caliphate, ʿUmar suspended the state’s offensive strategy and turned his attention to the internal tensions prevailing within the empire. The year-long siege of Constantinople was lifted in 718. Only in the West were further territorial gains made during this period: in 719, the governor of al-Andalus captured the Gallic city of Narbonne.

The Islamic state, which by that time had already become a world empire, was still administered as a confederation of Arab tribes. Non-Arabs who converted to Islam were therefore required to become clients (mawālī) of Arab tribes. The Arabs’ sense of superiority over non-Arab peoples was also reflected in the field of Qurʾanic exegesis. Until the early 8th century, the son of Abraham mentioned in the Qurʾān as willing to submit when God commanded his sacrifice (cf. Q 37:102–105) was, in continuation of the biblical account, generally identified as Isaac, the ancestor of the Jews. It was during the time of ʿUmar II that the idea first arose that this must have been Ismāʿīl, the ancestor of the Arabs. This doctrine later became the generally accepted view in Islam.

The Murjiʾite movement, whose foremost aim had originally been to restore unity among Muslims, assumed a new political role at the beginning of the 8th century by advocating for the rights of the mawālī in Khorasan and Transoxania. In 718/9, a Murjiʾite client named Abū al-Saʿīdāʾ complained to ʿUmar, stating that 20,000 mawālī in Khorasan were serving in the army without pay and that a similar number of new converts were being forced to pay the jizya. ʿUmar subsequently ensured that these new non-Arab converts were accorded equal status with the Arabs. According to his decree, anyone who professed the Muslim confession of faith and prayed facing their qibla was to be exempted from paying the jizya.

One issue widely discussed at the time was the circumcision of converts. Were men who embraced Islam as adults still required to be circumcised? While the Umayyad governors of Khorasan regarded this as obligatory, Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ruled that circumcision should not be performed if there was reason to fear that it might cause harm to the individual’s health. ʿUmar went even further, abolishing the requirement of circumcision for new converts altogether. In this context, the following saying is attributed to him: “God sent Muḥammad as a preacher, not as a circumciser.” To create an additional incentive for conversion to Islam, he, conversely, imposed upon the dhimmīs the so-called ghiyār —the obligation to wear distinctive clothing that set them apart from Muslims.

6.3. Yazīd II, Hishām, and the Growth of Religio-Political Opposition (720–743)

6.3.1. The Fourth Phase of Expansion and the End of the Jihad State

ʿUmar’s successors, the brothers Yazīd ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 720–724) and Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–743), resumed the earlier policy of expansion. In 725, the governor of al-Andalus, ʿAnbasa, subdued the region of Septimania in the south of present-day France and established Arab garrisons in the cities of the lower Rhône valley. In 730, the Umayyad prince Maslama captured the city of Derbent in the Caucasus and settled 24,000 Arabs there. This marked the beginning of the lasting Islamization of Daghestan. In 735, the Sūs Valley —located between the High Atlas, the Anti-Atlas, and the Atlantic Ocean in the far west of North Africa— was conquered, and its population converted to Islam.

However, there were already some territorial losses during this period. In 722, on the Iberian Peninsula, Pelayo —a Visigothic military nobleman— launched an uprising against Muslim rule; the territory he controlled in the far north of the peninsula could never be regained. In 727, the attempt to capture the Byzantine city of Nicaea had to be abandoned. All subsequent advances into Frankish and Byzantine territory ended in heavy defeats (Tours and Poitiers, 732; Akroinon, 740). The Rhône valley was once again lost in 737. The Islamic Empire was increasingly drawn into a military crisis, and its expansionist policy could no longer be pursued as before.

The causes of this crisis lay in the difficulties of administering so vast an empire, in the increasingly violent rivalries among various Arab tribes, and in the general loss of political legitimacy suffered by the Umayyad dynasty. As early as 720, Yazīd ibn al-Muhallab, the son of al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra, led a Kharijite-inspired revolt in Basra, calling for a jihād against the Umayyads “in the name of the Book of God and the Sunnah of the Prophet.” An increasing number of groups, including the Qadarites, began to question this family’s prerogative in the religious and political leadership of the ummah.

6.3.2. The Hāshimite daʿwa and the Shīʿa

Although the Marwānids, who had ruled since 685, were no longer descendants of Abū Sufyān, they still belonged to the Meccan clan of ʿAbd Shams. An opposition movement arose against their dominance in the Islamic state, striving for the supremacy of the Banū Hāshim clan, to which the Prophet himself had belonged. The propaganda (daʿwah) of this movement, referred to as Hāshimite, was carried by agents (duʿāt, sing. dāʿī) as far as the garrisons of eastern Iran. These agents operated in secrecy and used pseudonyms. The identity of the future imām–caliph had not yet been revealed; instead, their outreach was carried out in the name of “the one from the House of Muḥammad who will find approval” (al-riḍā min āl Muḥammad).

Within this Hāshimite daʿwa, the Abbasids —descendants of the Prophet’s uncle al-ʿAbbās, who at that time lived in Ḥumayma, a small settlement in southern Jordan— played an important role. Around 718, members of this family had already begun to devise plans to seize power in the caliphate. The first Abbasid to become involved in the daʿwa was Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī (d. 743), a grandson of ʿAbdallāh ibn ʿAbbās. Supporters of the Alids, who likewise belonged to the clan of the Banū Hāshim, also took part in the daʿwa movement. These Shīʿīs dispatched their own agents from Kufa to Khorasan, where they mingled with those of the Abbasids. At times, the Khorasan daʿwa apparatus operated independently and pursued its own objectives.

The political and religious ideas held by the Kūfan Shīʿīs at that time are documented in the so-called Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays, which is regarded as the oldest work of Shīʿī literature. In this work, the claim of Muḥammad’s family to rule over the Muslims is affirmed, and their exclusion from power is interpreted as a conspiracy, said to have been plotted by several of the Prophet’s Companions even before Muḥammad’s death. Among the Kūfan Shīʿīs were figures who elevated the imamate to divine status and espoused gnostic ideas. Of these, the most prominent were al-Mughīra ibn Saʿīd and Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī, each claiming to be a prophet. Al-Mughīra developed an extremely anthropomorphic doctrine of God and taught that God had created the world by uttering the “Greatest Name of God” (ism Allāh al-aʿẓam). He derived this idea from the Qurʾanic passage in Surah 87:1–2, which he read as: “Praise the most high name of your Lord, who created and proportioned.” He claimed to know the “Greatest Name of God” and thus to be able to raise the dead back to life. After Mughīra, many other Muslim gnostics also took an interest in this “Greatest Name of God” and attributed magical properties to it. Mughīra’s extreme Shīʿism was evident in his ascription of divine attributes to ʿAlī and his declaration that the two caliphs, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, were unbelievers since they had prevented ʿAlī from assuming the caliphate after the Prophet’s death.

Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī introduced the principle of allegorical Qurʾanic interpretation (taʾwīl) into Islam. He maintained that Qurʾanic terms such as Jannah (“garden”) and nār (“fire”) referred merely to certain persons who were to be venerated or opposed. He interpreted Qurʾanic commandments and prohibitions in a similar manner, which resulted in an antinomian attitude. He even considered the killing of opponents permissible. He regarded the imams as prophets and explained ʿAlī’s prophethood by claiming that the angel Gabriel had erred, delivering to Muḥammad the divine message that had been intended for ʿAlī. Both al-Mughīra and Abū Manṣūr —regarded as ghulāt, that is, Shīʿī extremists— were executed during the caliphate of Hishām.

Another Shīʿī group of this period was the Batriyya, which held very moderate views regarding the early history of Islam. Although the Batrīs regarded ʿAlī as the most excellent (al-afḍal) of all Muslims after the Prophet, they nevertheless acknowledged the caliphates of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as legitimate since ʿAlī had pledged allegiance to them. Similar views were held by Zayd ibn ʿAlī, a Husaynid who lived in Medina. When he went to Kufa in 739 and called upon the Shīʿīs to revolt against the Umayyads, a division arose within the Shīʿī community there. Although Zayd initially rallied several thousand Shīʿīs behind him, most deserted him once they realized that he was unwilling to revile the first two caliphs. Those Shīʿīs who insisted on reviling the first two caliphs have since been referred to in Islamic doxography as the Rāfiḍa (“Rejecters,” namely those who rejected Zayd ibn ʿAlī), whereas those who recognized the imamate of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as legitimate —and thus espoused a more moderate form of Shīʿism— came to be known as the Zaydiyya, owing to their association with Zayd ibn ʿAlī.

Zayd’s rebellion against Caliph Hishām in 740 failed due to the limited support he received from the Kufan Shīʿīs; he fell while fighting the governor’s troops in Kufa. Zayd’s young son Yaḥyā fled to Khorasan but fell into Umayyad hands. After his release, he again attempted to rise in revolt in the region of Herat (in western Afghanistan), but fell in battle against the Umayyad government forces in 743.

6.3.3. The Schism of Ibn Surayj and the Jahmiyya

In 734, the Arab fighter al-Ḥārith ibn Surayj —closely associated with the Murjiʾites of Abū al-Saʿīdāʾ— initiated an uprising against the Umayyads in Khorasan. Ibn Surayj, who in a public declaration demanded that the governor of Khorasan be chosen by a shūrā and that he govern in accordance with the Book of God and the Sunnah of the Prophet, succeeded in capturing the city of Balkh. After a defeat against the Umayyad troops, he allied himself with non-Muslim Turkic chieftains who, at that time, were waging war against the Arabs from Transoxania. Although the Umayyad governor managed to inflict a defeat on Ibn Surayj and his Turkic allies in 737, he failed to defeat Ibn Surayj decisively. Ibn Surayj withdrew in the following years to northern Transoxania, where he lived among Turkic tribal groups who adhered to a Buddhist faith.

Ibn Surayj’s secretary was a certain Jahm ibn Ṣafwān, to whom a distinct theological current within Islam is traced, known for its tendency to “divest” God of all attributes (Arab. taʿṭīl). In his theology, drawing upon Qurʾanic statements (e.g., Q 39:63 and 42:11), Jahm sharply distinguished between God and everything that is termed a “thing” (shayʾ) and created. On this basis, he argued that God must not be ascribed any attributes of created things or beings, including humans. This rejection of any form of anthropomorphism also led Jahm to insist that God’s speech must be created. Since God, he argued, has no physical body, He cannot Himself speak, but can only create speech perceptible to human beings. Since God’s speech was created, then by logical consequence the Qurʾān, too, had to be created (createdness of the Qurʾān). It is reported that Jahm engaged in religious disputations with Buddhist monks mentioned in the sources as Sumaniyya. It is quite possible that he developed his rigorously abstract and transcendent concept of God through his engagement with Buddhism, in which the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) plays an important role. The Jahmiyya —the school founded by Jahm ibn Ṣafwān— was also distinguished by another feature, namely its particular deterministic theory of action. According to this view, humans do not truly act independently, but their actions are instead brought about by God. This conception, which in a sense represents the opposing position to that of the Qadariyya, became known in Arabic as the Jabriyya (“doctrine of compulsion”) and was later adopted, in a somewhat attenuated form, by other Islamic groups.

6.3.4. The Kharijites in North Africa

From the beginning of the 8th century onward, the teachings of the moderate Kharijites found strong support among the Amazigh of western North Africa. For them, these doctrines served as an effective means of expressing their resistance to Arab domination. In the Maghreb, the so-called Ṣufrī branch of the Kharijite movement became a “rallying point for political opposition” (U. Rebstock). Around 739, Amazigh tribes of Ṣufrī orientation in the region around Tangier rose in open revolt against Umayyad rule, led by their caliph Maysara. They captured Tangier and, over the next three years, succeeded in extending their rebellion eastward as far as Kairouan. Additional Ṣufrī leaders from Tlemcen and Béja joined the revolt with their Amazigh tribes, and, in 741, routed an Umayyad army. It was only in the second half of the 740s that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥabīb, the Umayyad governor of Ifrīqiya who at that time ruled independently, succeeded in halting the advance of the Ṣufrī Amazigh tribes and ushering in a period of relative calm.

6.4. Fiqh: The Islamic Science of Norms

Over the course of the eighth century, Islamic scholarship underwent a significant process of differentiation. The term fiqh (lit. “understanding,” “knowledge”), which, in accordance with its Qurʾanic usage (cf. Q 9:122) originally denoted knowledge of religion in a general sense, came to designate a distinct discipline concerned with the ethical and legal evaluation of human actions. Those versed in this discipline have since been referred to as fuqahāʾ (sing. faqīh). The term is commonly rendered as “jurists” or “legal scholars,” though this translation is somewhat misleading, as the fuqahāʾ concern themselves not only with legal questions pertaining to worldly matters but also with ritual ones.

6.4.1. The Regional Schools

Within fiqh, which may be described as the Islamic Science of Norms, four major centers had emerged by the mid-eighth century: Medina, Basra, Syria, and Kufa. It is noteworthy that in nearly all of these centers, mawālī —that is, non-Arabs— gradually came to assume the leading positions in scholarship. The following section outlines the distinctive features of these centers of learning, while also addressing the role of religio-political movements.

6.4.1.1. Medina

Medina was the first place where legal scholarship took shape. As early as the turn of the eighth century, there was a council of seven fuqahāʾ who were consulted on ritual, legal, and ethical matters. Its leading figure for a long period was Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, an outstanding authority on the legal rulings of ʿUmar, upon which he also based his own decisions. Around the middle of the eighth century, the Ḥusaynid Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad (d. 765) played an important role. After his father’s death in 733, many Shiʿīs regarded him as an imam, although —unlike his cousin Zayd— he remained politically inactive. The head of the Medinan legal school later became Mālik ibn Anas (d. 795). He held that Medina, as the place in which the Prophet’s religious movement had taken shape and he had established a state, embodied a sacred and living tradition of sound practice (ʿamal) that could serve as a point of reference for the evaluation of legal doctrines. Practices that were generally recognized in Medina were also referred to as ijmāʿ (“consensus”). Mālik compiled his body of knowledge in his work al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, the earliest extant comprehensive work of Islamic science of norms. His school of law spread to Egypt, already during his lifetime. In those regions where it took root, the specifically Medinan Qurʾanic reading —known as the reading of Nāfiʿ— also became established.

6.4.1.2. Basra

The intellectual climate in Basra was strongly influenced by the Ibāḍīs, a moderate branch of the Kharijites. They were named after ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ibāḍ, a figure whose identity remains largely obscure. As a self-designation, the Ibāḍīs used the expression jamāʿat al-muslimīn (“the community of Muslims”), granting other Muslims only the status of ahl al-qibla —those who pray in the proper direction. For the most part, however, they maintained a low profile and concealed their true confession of faith from the authorities. The two most important Ibāḍī authorities in fiqh in the early eighth century were Jābir ibn Zayd (d. between 711 and 723) and Abū ʿUbayda Muslim ibn Abī Karīma.

Otherwise, the aforementioned al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was regarded as the foremost fiqh authority in Basra. Qatāda ibn Diʿāma al-Sadūsī (d. 736), a student of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, authored one of the earliest works on the doctrine of abrogation (naskh). This doctrine provides an answer to the question of how to handle Qurʾanic prescriptions that appear to contradict one another. According to the doctrine of abrogation, in such cases only the Qurʾanic verse revealed later in time was considered valid, while the earlier one was deemed no longer legally binding. Qatāda, for example, held the view that the “sword verse” (Q 9:5) and the verse enjoining combat against the ahl al-kitāb (9:29) had abrogated all other Qurʾanic verses recommending peaceful conduct toward unbelievers (e.g., Q 8:61; 29:46). Later, many other scholars composed works on the doctrine of abrogation, which became one of the most important subfields of legal Qurʾanic exegesis. The principal textual basis for this doctrine was Surah 2:106: “Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof.” Determining which verses had been abrogated by others required knowledge of the chronological order of the surahs and verses. Knowledge of this kind was also collected in the early eighth century and committed to writing in independent works on the “occasions of revelation” (asbāb al-nuzūl) of the various verses.

6.4.1.3. Syria

The dominant figure of Syrian fiqh in the early eighth century was the aforementioned Qadarite Makhūl ibn Abī Muslim (d. 731). In his legal opinions, he is said to have relied entirely on his own independent judgment (raʾy). When issuing a legal opinion, he is reported to have said: “There is no power nor strength except with God. This is my opinion (raʾy); an opinion may be mistaken or may be right.” The Syrian school, which had close ties to the ruling Umayyad dynasty, was later led by the scholar al-Awzāʿī (d. 774). A defining feature of the Syrian legal tradition was its strong interest in issues concerning jihad and relations with non-Muslims. Makhūl is cited in the traditionist literature as stating that jihad is a duty incumbent upon every individual Muslim (male and in good health). Al-Awzāʿī is known to have composed a work entitled Siyar, which concerns the conduct (siyar, pl. of sīra) of Muslims in their relations with non-believers. In this work, he was the first in Islam to formulate what might be described as a form of international law. Fundamental to his conception was the distinction between the territory where Islamic norms prevail, known as the dār al-islām (“territory of Islam”), and that in which jihad must be waged against unbelievers, referred to as the dār al-harb (“territory of war”). Among unbelievers, distinctions were accordingly drawn between the ḥarbī, who lives in enemy territory; the mustaʾmin, who temporarily resides in Muslim territory under a grant of safe conduct (amān); and the dhimmi, who permanently resides in Muslim territory and pays the jizya. Al-Awzāʿī also laid down rules governing the treatment of apostates and rebels, the distribution of war booty, and the conduct required of Muslims in the dār al-ḥarb, among other matters. Following his model, several other Arab scholars later composed works on siyar.

6.4.1.4. Kufa

In this city, there were two groups of jurists. One group was more strongly rationalist in orientation and, alongside the Qurʾān, regarded independent reasoning (ijtihād al-raʾy) —particularly in the form of analogical reasoning (qiyas)— as the principal means of deriving norms. A further characteristic of this group, which was dominated by mawālī, was its reliance on the non-canonical Qurʾanic readings of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy ibn Kaʿb in many of its legal decisions. By contrast, the other group of jurists, led in the early eighth century by the aforementioned al-Shaʿbī, was more strongly oriented toward the Sunnah and rejected qiyās. By the middle of the eighth century, the rationalist school —dominated by mawālī— came under the leadership of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 767), a scholar from eastern Iran. He introduced pragmatic consideration (istiḥsān) as a new method of deriving norms in fiqh and developed legal stratagems (ḥiyal) to circumvent the normative constraints of the Qurʾān and the Sunnah. His counterpart as head of the traditionalist school was the Arab scholar Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 778).

The leading figures of the two schools were also opposed to each other on the doctrinal level. Abū Ḥanīfa was a Murjiʾite, whereas Sufyān was an opponent of the Murjiʾites and regarded them as heretics. Abū Ḥanīfa defended them against this accusation, asserting that they were in fact ahl al-sunnah. Like the Murjiʾites, he drew the boundaries of faith very broadly. He taught that a convert to Islam who professed the faith, even without any knowledge of the Qurʾān or the religious obligations of Islam, was nevertheless a true believer (muʾmin). This view also had political implications: it allowed the mawālī to be recognized as full-fledged Muslims. Sufyān al-Thawrī, by contrast, drew the boundaries of faith much more narrowly. He held that one could not even know of oneself whether one was a believer and therefore required that any such declaration always be accompanied by the istithnāʾ —the exception formula, “if God wills.”

The two also held differing positions regarding the Qurʾān. It is reported that Abū Ḥanīfa was among the first scholars in Iraq to publicly advocate the doctrine of the Createdness of the Qurʾān, a teaching originally advanced by Jahm ibn Ṣafwān. According to tradition, the governor of Iraq summoned him to tawba on account of this doctrine. The doctrine of the Qurʾān’s createdness provoked controversy because, by that time, belief in the Qurʾān’s pre-existence had already become widespread among the general population. Sufyān al-Thawrī shared this view. He formulated the doctrinal statement: “The Qurʾān is the word of God, uncreated; from Him it originated, and to Him it returns.” He considered those who maintained that the Qurʾān was created to be unbelievers.

Abū Ḥanīfa’s commitment to the equal status of non-Arab converts to Islam contributed to the early spread of his teaching —the Ḥanafiyya— through eastern Iran, Transoxania, and especially among the newly converted Turks.

6.4.2. The Further Development of Islamic Ritual Practice in Fiqh

Within fiqh, the regulations governing Islamic ritual practice were further elaborated. For instance, the number of daily obligatory prayers was increased to five, probably under Persian influence. With regard to the state of purity, which constitutes a prerequisite for the validity of acts of worship, a system was introduced distinguishing between two degrees of impurity, each requiring a distinct form of ablution. Major ritual impurity (janāba), which is caused by sexual intercourse or the emission of semen, requires a full ablution (ghusl), during which every part of the body must come into contact with water. Minor ritual impurity (ḥadath), by contrast, which arises from occurrences such as relieving oneself or sleeping, requires only a partial ablution (wuḍūʾ). The obligatory components of wuḍūʾ comprise washing the face, washing the forearms up to the elbows, wiping the head with wet hands, and washing the feet. There was, however, disagreement as to whether wiping over footwear could suffice in place of washing the feet.

In addition to the adhān, a second call to prayer —known as the iqama— was introduced. It is performed inside the mosque immediately before the commencement of the prayer. With regard to the ṣalāt, the view became established that it must be initiated with a niyyah, a declaration of intention, in which the worshipper specifies which particular ṣalāt he intends to perform. The Friday congregational service was expanded to include a sermon delivered before the Friday prayer. The Friday sermon has remained an essential component of Islamic religious life to this day.

The fiqh scholars also deliberated on the proper time for the saḥūr, the final meal before dawn during the Ramaḍān fast; the precise procedure for the sighting of the new moon (ruʾyat al-hilāl), which is required for determining the beginning of the month of Ramaḍān; and the question of who exactly is obligated to fast. With regard to the latter point, it was established, for instance, that women are not permitted to fast during menstruation or the postpartum period, but are obliged to make up the missed days afterward.

6.4.3. The Field of Criminal Law

In the case of the offense of extramarital sexual intercourse (zinā), the legal scholars continued to regard stoning as a possible form of punishment but introduced an important distinction: only persons who are in the so-called iḥṣān status were to be punished by stoning for zinā; those who did not meet this status, by contrast, were to receive only one hundred lashes, in accordance with the Qurʾānic provision (Q 24:2). There were, however, major differences of opinion among the fiqh scholars regarding the conditions for the attainment of the state of iḥṣān. It was generally held that it required sexual maturity, freedom, and a validly consummated marriage. The reasoning was that these attributes, when present in a person, served as a form of protection against zinā —hence the term iḥṣān (“immunization”)— and that, accordingly, the offense committed by such a person had to be punished more severely. In effect, the concept of iḥṣān, which was derived from various Qurʾanic passages (including Surah 4:25), led to a substantial limitation of the stoning penalty within the scope of Islamic law.